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HUNDREDTH CENTURY 
PHILOSOPHY 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



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Perception of Light 

and 
Gonception of Self 



xll 

Percept of 

Visual Light. 



xlx. 
Concept Self, 
self as such or 
as I or ego 
or as soul or 
spirit. 



x. 

Proximately 

Cerebral agitation 

Ultimately 
Absolute Reality. 




Proximately 
Ether vibrations. 

Ultimately 
Absolute Reality. 



xl. 

Point of Impact 
of ether vibrations 
on cerebral agitations. 

(vibrations?) 



The point of origin 
of Consciousness. 



HUNDREDTH CENTURY 
PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

CHARLES KIRKLAND WHEELER 



«>r 



BOSTON 

Press of James H. West Company 
1906 



IN THE DIAGRAM 

/= certain ether vibrations entering the eye. 

x = certain cerebral agitations or vibrations with 
which the above (/) come into collision at c. 

xl= the primary resultant agitation or vibration this 
collision gives rise to, and of which the mental correlate 
is consciousness or a near approach to it. But the con- 
sciousness of what ? That is determined by the pri- 
mary resultant xl reacting as it were, and itself, in its 
turn, colliding with one or the other of its own factors. 
As it does so with the factor /, as is the case when the 
attention is directed outward, a second resultant xll 
obtains, the mental correlate of which is quite conscious- 
ness altogether, and with the percept visual light for 
content — or that of which there is then consciousness ; 
or as it (xl) reacts colliding with the factor x, as it 
does when the attention is directed inward, there is 
then a second resultant, xlx, and of which the mental 
correlate is consciousness with the concept self, the self 
of selt-consciousness, for content — or that, again, of 
which there is consciousness. (See page 27.) 

One thing further : Notice that the perception or 
s of light is the mental correlate of a re- 
t of a compound merely x+ 1+ I ; 



sultant xll a 



and as of a resultant, then a consciousness as involving 
nothing of a consciousness as should be that the mental 
correlate of what (/) is only a factor of that resultant 
(xll). That is to say, the perception or consciousness 
of light we may know, a priori, can by no possibility 
be any consciousness of ether vibrations, and which 
indeed we from experience know it is not. 

Just so precisely with the conception or conscious- 
ness of "self." It, too, is the mental correlate of a 
resultant, the resultant xlx, and not of a compound 
x + I + x. Wherefore everything, for like reasons, 
follows as in the perception or consciousness of light ; 
that is, that in the conception or consciousness of the 
"self" of self-consciousness,there is in that moment 
no consciousness of brain or cerebral molecular agita- 
tions, or, by implication, of the conscious entity their 
mental correlate ; none as even having reference to 
that of which there is no consciousness : it is simply 
impossible. How then, pray, can consciousness of 
self, that is, self-consciousness, be one with the any 
consciousness of the conscious entity of itself which 
itself (the conscious entity) there was not first even a 
consciousness of? Indeed, the identification of "self" 
with the conscious entity is thus seen to be entirely 
an afterthought, an inference only, one arbitrary and 
utterly without warrant. (See pages 1 16, 1 17.) 



-s& 



S«* 



^ s 



I LIBBARY of CONGRESS 

Two Copies Received 

OCT 25 1906 

A N y right Entry 
CLASS A XXc.No, 






Copyright, 1906 
By Charles K. Wheeler 






HER, — FRIEND AND COMPANION OF MY 
LATER YEARS 

TO WHOSE MOST LOVING APPRECIATION AND 

UNWEARIED ENCOURAGEMENT I AM 

GREATLY INDEBTED 



PREFACE 

NOT a few of the views put forth in this 
work are the very reverse of those 
current and even hoary with the ages of 
human thought. But why, touching the 
profoundest of subjects, should it once be 
even dreamt that the ideas of the child- 
hood of the race should be those of its 
maturity ? The doctrine of the universe 
an evolution — which, that it took some 
two hundred thousand years to arrive at, is 
evidently not a childhood's idea — relegates 
to oblivion the idea of the universe as 
watch and watchmaker ; for with the uni- 
verse an evolution is absolutely impossible 
everything of that idea, and that too whether 
watchmaker outside the watch or inside. 
Moreover, with the universe not as watch 
and watchmaker, and we have a universe one 



6 Preface 

of necessity ; for there is absolutely again 
no halting station between the one and the 
other. So that here we have two ideas not 
readily or at all within childhood's grasp, 
superseding one which, that it is a child- 
hood's idea, is not only that, but a childish 
idea. And as with the childish idea of the 
universe as watch and watchmaker super- 
seded with the advancement of the race, 
why not so with all childhood's ideas on the 
deeper subjects, with its advancement ? 



CONTENTS 

-*> 

PAGE 

i. Matter the Root of all 9 

2. Matter Not Wholly Mind 12 

3. Final Reality Veiled by Its Activity .... 14 

4. Final Reality Not to be Reasoned Out ... 17 

5. Mind Only Act or Activity 18 

6. The Absolute Not Soul or Spirit ? 22 

7. What May Be Soul or Spirit ? 25 

8. What is the Perception of Light ? 27 

9. Two Modes of Absolute Being 33 

10. Two Modes Not Coexistent 36 

11. Is the More Real the Less Realizable ? . . . 39 

12. Modes of Activity or Energy 43 

13. Mind or Consciousness Not Primary .... 45 

14. Matter the Spring of Consciousness .... 59 

15. Life and Mind Only Physical Force .... 74 

16. Consciousness Not a Thing in Continuity . . 77 

17. Only One's Own Life Directly Realized . . 80 

18. Paradox 83 

19. Is Consciousness Universal? 85 

20. Not Conscious of Universal Consciousness . 88 



8 Contents 

PAGE 

21. How Signalized Modes of Energy? 91 

22. No Realization of Being of God 94 

23. Ours Not a Universal Consciousness .... 101 

24. The World Within an Illusion 103 

25. The Physical as Objective Thought .... 107 

26. Objective Thought Not Always Verifiable . in 

27. Why Not Directly Conscious You of Me? . 118 

28. Why Not See Your Own Brain as Such ? .127 

29. Is It Vibrations as Such ? 131 

30. What is Permanent is of Necessity .... 133 

31. Man a Necessity to Absolute Being .... 135 

32. Man Only a By-product or By-end 139 

33. Creative Act or Activity the Main End ... 141 

34. Proof of Man only a By-product 142 

35. Man No More than Men the Main Product 149 

36. The Volitional Utterly Excluded 151 

37. Evolution Only Confirms 153 

38. The Positive Moral also Excluded 155 

39. Blessings No Evidence of Beneficence ... 156 

40. Blessings Only Such in Effect 161 

41. Suffering Has No Mission 163 

42. Evil No Mystery 167 

43. At Last 170 



HUNDREDTH CENTURY 
PHILOSOPHY 



Not Matter as Such but as Something 
the Foundation of Everything 

Inquirer. Consciousness, as we know it, 
would seem associated only with matter, 
matter as brain, and as dependent on it ; so 
that matter, which is the foundation, prox- 
imate or ultimate, of everything else, would 
seem even the foundation of everything alto- 
gether, — but is it ? 

Oracle. Yes and no ; matter, as such, is 
not that foundation ; but matter, as some- 
thing, is. 

Inq. What do you mean by matter, as 
such, in contradistinction from matter as 
something ? 

Or. Well, take a billiard ball (or a solid 



10 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

cube, which would be to the same effect), tie 
a string to it, and whirl it around as rapidly 
as you can ; it will then look to be a ring. 
But the billiard ball is not a ring, it is a sphere. 
The ring, then, as a ring, that is to say, the 
ring, as such, is the sphere as it appears ; and 
we say that that, what it appears, is not what 
the billiard ball is in itself, or in reality, which 
is, in reality, a sphere. But still the ring is 
something, something absolute ; as whatsoever 
could be nothing save only as from which 
everything withdrawn nothing would be ; and 
everything of the ring withdrawn and the 
billiard ball would be, which itself at least 
something, not everything could be withdrawn 
from the ring and nothing be. The ring, 
therefore, cannot be nothing ; in other words, 
must be something. But, as something, it is 
what the billiard ball is, which itself, as I have 
said, is at least something, whatever more it 
is. The ring, then, as such, is not what the 
billiard ball is ; but as something, it is. 

So, matter, as such, is to be understood to 
be the Absolute Reality and foundation of 
things as that Reality appears — but only as 
It appears ; that which It appears being not 



Matter the Root of All 1 1 

what the Absolute Reality is in Itself, or is in 
fact, which is something else ; tho what else 
is utterly inscrutable to us. 

But matter still, like the ring, is at least 
something as something absolute ; and as it is 
that, it is what the Absolute Reality is, which 
Itself is at least that, whatever more or else 
It is. Matter is something since it could, no 
more than could the ring, be nothing save 
only as from it everything withdrawn, nothing 
would be ; and everything of matter would 
be as the Absolute Reality was, which, that 
Itself, certainly something, not everything 
could be withdrawn from matter and nothing 
be. Matter, therefore, cannot be nothing ; 
in other words, must be something in the 
sense of a thing absolute. But as that, it is 
what the Absolute Reality is, which is at 
least, as I have said, something whatever more 
or else It is. 

Matter, then, as such, is not, but matter 
as verily something, is indeed the Absolute 
Reality and foundation of all things, even of 
consciousness itself. 



12 Hundredth Century Philosophy 



Matter Not Wholly Mind 

Inq. Then it is with no propriety said that 
matter is " only a group of qualities having no 
existence independent of the mind " ? 

Or, Why, no, of course not — not if it is 
intended, as it usually is, to convey the im- 
pression that only mind is involved in its or 
their existence. The ring has no existence 
but for the "eye and mind" (eye brain and 
mind), to be sure ; but still, too, has none 
even with the eye and mind, save only for the 
billiard ball. That is, even tho the ring per- 
sists any moment where, for that moment, the 
ball is not, and persists only by reason of the 
eye and mind, yet even then it does so only 
by reason of the billiard ball first or last still, 
since it only obtains at all to be anything to 
persist because of the billiard ball. 

So, matter itself, even tho a group of qual- 
ities having no existence independent of the 
mind, has still, too, none even with the mind, 



Matter Not Wholly Mind 13 

but for the Absolute Reality and foundation 
of all things beyond, only for which once ever 
obtains our impression of matter at all ; and 
so only for which, once for an instant in the 
conceivable contingency of the momentary 
absence of the Absolute Reality, ever per- 
sisting. 

Inq. You mean, then, to be understood as 
insisting that it is only pure assumption, and, 
withal, a perfect absurdity, as is represented 
that in our seeing and handling matter, we 
see and handle only a group of qualities which 
only the perceiving mind is involved in the 
existence of ; a pure assumption and altogether 
absurdity that we are not, rather, seeing and 
handling a group which even yet that having 
no existence but for the mind, do still even 
with the mind have none but for a substratum 
of independent reality, that reality the Abso- 
lute Reality, and which very Itself we are 
looking at at least, and handling, as ever we 
see and handle matter. 

Or, Exactly so. 



14 Hundredth Century Philosophy 



The Activity of the Absolute Reality 
Rather Conceals than Reveals It 

Inq. But the illustration of the billiard 
ball would suggest that motion or activity of 
a thing rather hides than reveals the thing 
active or in motion. 

Or. Truly so ; and may hide even activity 
itself, as such ; that is, motion or activity may 
conceal motion or activity. As notice, that 
when the billiard ball is made to whirl at a 
very rapid rate, the appearance is that of a 
solid ring in statu quo, and not that of any- 
thing as active or in motion. 

Inq. Then, you would say that the Abso- 
lute Reality Itself, that that, too, may be con- 
cealed from us by reason of Its very activity ; 
and again, in instances, concealed even the 
activity itself, as such, by that activity ? 

Or. I certainly would. 

Inq. But this is quite the contrary of the 
view generally held, which is that it is only in 



Final Reality Veiled by Its Activity 15 

its activity that the Final or Absolute Reality 
("God," if It be "God") reveals Itself to us. 

Or. Oh yes ; but when was ever the view 
generally held the correct one ? But why not 
it the Final Reality's activity that conceals It ? 
Men generally, such the 'confusion of their 
minds, declare in one and the same breath 
that the Absolute Reality, as It is in Itself, 
is hidden from us ; and, again, that It is re- 
vealed to us. However, if concealed from us, 
as It surely is, something conceals It; and 
why not as likely Its activity that does it as 
anything else ? If our activity, too, — mental 
activity, — such as that is, might contribute 
to hiding It, still why not yet Its own, besides, 
do so and It be doubly hidden ? 

Then again, indeed, it may be due to the 
Final Reality's activity that there is withheld 
from our any possible knowledge whether 
there is in fact anything active, anything a 
substratum beyond and distinct from activity 
itself which is active as there is activity, — 
tho that there should not be is not the least 
within our comprehension, it being only what 
we may think of, not anything we can in the 
leastwise think, think as realizing. 



1 6 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

Inq. But, in any event, as there might be 
Reality more final than activity itself, it would 
appear, from all that you have said, that we 
must see and handle It as ever we see and 
handle matter, tho not as recognizing It as 
that which we see and handle. 

Or. Truly so. But what still It is, what 
positively It is, and in Itself It is, we knowing 
as knowing that we know what It is, is quite 
utterly beyond our mental grasp. 



Final Reality Not to be Reasoned Out 1 7 



Cannot Reason out What the Absolute 

Reality is — only What It is Not 

and That It is Not Mind 

Inq. And yet that all this may be true so 
far as our directly cognizing with our physical 
senses such Reality is concerned, still may we 
not, from knowing what Its activity is, reason 
out what It Itself is which is active ? 

Or. No, not in the least. For the any- 
thing active, and the activity of that thing, 
are of two utterly distinct categories. Recall- 
ing the illustration of the billiard ball and 
ring, can you reason from the ring to knowing 
whether it is a sphere or a cube, whether a 
ball of ivory, or a ball of snow, that is in 
motion ? 



1 8 Hundredth Century Philosophy 



Mind Known only as Act or Activity 

Or. In respect of mind, indeed, all that on 
introspection, or all anyway, that we know, 
as knowing that we know, is mind an act or 
activity, such as feeling, perceiving, conceiv- 
ing, and the like. What it is which acts or is 
active as we have mind — mind itself being 
act or activity — of that we know nothing ; 
or nothing except as to what it is not, and 
that, at least, it is not mind ; since if the 
activity be itself mind, the thing active can 
by no possibility be mind. Can that in motion 
be itself the motion of that in motion ? Can 
the billiard ball be itself what is only the 
motion of the billiard ball ? Is there identity 
of nature or thing between the clock which 
goes and the going of the clock ? Is it the 
time which is kept, which it is the going 
of, which keeps the time, forsooth ! Is it 
not, rather, the clock, which is a thing rad- 
ically different from the time which is kept 



Mind Only Act or Activity 19 

which it is the going of which keeps the 
time ? 

But if the clock, and its going, are not to 
be thought of an identity of nature, if it is 
not to be thought that it is the activity of the 
time that is kept which it is the going of which 
keeps the time, then how shall that which is 
active be itself mind, if what is its activity be 
mind ? 

And in fact it is only in reference to mind 
that there is this idiotic confusion of the 
thing active with its activity. 

In view, therefore, of what I have been 
saying, what could be sillier than talking about 
the mind being active — except, of course, for 
short, as when, for short, we speak of the sun's 
rising ? — what sillier, when there is no such 
thing as mind active ; or, rather, no such as 
mind inactive ; since, as I have implied, when 
the mind is not active there is no mind? 

Inq. But we can say at least that what acts 
as we have mind is mental faculty. 

Or. Why, yes, say that much, of course. 

Inq. And yet what are we to understand 
by mental faculty ? 

Or. Well, what but mental capacity sim- 



20 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

ply, capacity mental not as being itself mind, 
but only as being that capable, under circum- 
stances, of becoming or affording mind, as is 
the clock capable of affording or keeping time 
while yet not itself the time it is capable of 
aff ordiug- or keeping ? What, I say, is mental 
facul1^jm| this mental capacity, and capacity, 
too, as with that for keeping time, but a 
dependent attribute lodged with something 
radically different from mind itself, as capacity 
for keeping time is lodged with the clock, 
something radically different, something of an 
utterly distinct category from that of its going 
or of the time which is kept ? 

Inq. And we cannot, then, as knowing the 
activity to be mind, reason back to what the 
activity is activity of as we have mind ? 

Or. No, not in the least. 

Inq. And you mean to say that, even yet 
that should be inconceivable mind as activity 
without substratum distinct from it, still noth- 
ing incongruous with this is it that should be 
inconceivable by us what that substratum 
might be ; and that, in fact, what it is, is 
infinitely beyond our any possible knowing as 
knowing that we know what it is ; we at best 






Mind Only Act or Activity 21 

knowing, with any certainty, only what it is 
not, and that most certainly it is not mind ? 

Or. Yes, I mean to say practically that. 

And now to return to the general proposi- 
tion, namely, that we can no better reason out 
what the Absolute Reality is, what positively 
It is, than we can observe what It is with our 
physical senses. 

Why, we cannot, as I have before said, even 
know It to be anything beyond activity itself ; 
cannot even know It to be a substratum to 
activity beyond ; that is, we cannot even know 
any such as physical energy to be the activity 
of anything at all ; cannot know it to be any- 
thing more than the activity of activity, so 
to speak, inconceivable as may appear to us 
activity without the activity of something a 
something distinct from it. 

But so long as is not positively realizable 
by us the impossibility of the activity of noth- 
ing, that is, activity void of a substratum 
which, distinct from it, is that which is active, 
that long we must rest the matter just there 
at its unrealizableness, and not at its impos- 
sibility. 



22 Hundredth Century Philosophy 



Absolute Reality Not Soul or Spirit? 

Inq. But why might not that Final or 
Absolute Reality as the thing active be under- 
stood to be soul or spirit ? 

Or. In the first place, simply because those 
are terms used with the uttermost confusion ; 
used sometimes interchangeably as referring 
to one and the same thing ; and sometimes as 
referring to things assumed altogether distinct. 

And then, in the second place, because over 
and above all this confusion, they still are 
used, both of them, always as referring to 
what it is intended to be understood to be an 
entity distinct radically and altogether from 
everything of the physical, and the physical 
from everything of it, — nothing of which can 
be true of the Absolute Reality. The very 
essence of the ring, in the late illustration, was 
the billiard ball as very constituent of it. The 
ring had no beginning but for the ball, the 
ball not as watchmaker outside the watch and 



The Absolute Not Soul or Spirit 23 

author of it, but as very element of the rings 
constitution ; and neither had the ring any- 
indefinite persistence but for the indefinite 
persistence of the ball, and the ball as that 
constituent. Precisely so of the Final Reality 
and the physical. The latter would have no 
being but for the former ; the former not as 
cause but as very constituent of the latter. 
The Absolute Reality, then, as not an entity 
thus distinct from the physical, cannot possibly 
be said to answer to soul or spirit which is, in 
both the vulgar and the academic understand- 
ing of it. 

Inq. So that as to what that Reality is, we 
shall have to remain in the dark, in the dark 
completely ? 

Or. Completely ; remain so as to what 
positively It is, we only positively knowing 
what It is not, and that It certainly is not 
mind. 

Inq. But men say It is Mind, and God 
that mind. 

Or. Yes ; and in the same breath don't 
they tell you It is inscrutable, that " God " is 
inscrutable, and then proceed at once to tell 
you what that inscrutable is, and that it is 



24 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

mind ? How should they know it to be mind 
if inscrutable ? How should they any better 
know it to be mind, if inscrutable, than I know 
it to be physical, if inscrutable ? 

If only they would rest it there at its in- 
scrutability, and attempt or assume nothing 
farther about it, how many problems would 
be laid to rest forthwith, or be dissipated ! 
Take the greatest, the most troublesome of 
them all, that of evil. Why, there would be 
no problem of evil at all only for that a Being 
of God is assumed, a Being of infinite wis- 
dom, goodness, and power, only to reconcile 
evil with which is all the problem. Drop an 
infinite personality, a Being infinite in love, 
wisdom, and goodness, at the heart of things, 
and all the enigma of evil falls at once out of 
it. But men are uneasy but as they think 
they know even what they say it is impossible 
for them to know. And still could anything 
be more logically inconsistent and stupid than 
to assume the impossibility of knowing the 
Absolute Reality, and then straightway assume 
of it a personality ! 



What May be Soul or Spirit? 25 



7 
What May Soul or Spirit Answer to ? 

Inq. But if the Absolute Reality cannot 
be known as to what positively it is, and only 
as to what it is not, and that it cannot possibly 
be identified with soul or spirit, as such, at 
least, then to what might such be said to 
answer as intelligently answering to anything 
at all ? 

Or. Well, to answer to that as was sub- 
jectively entertained in consciousness what, 
as objectively entertained, is recognized as 
matter. 

Inq. But that would be to view soul or 
spirit as not even an entity at all, let alone the 
matter of its being one distinct from the physi- 
cal ; for that could not be an entity as was 
entity anything absolute which, only an appear- 
ance, is what it is only from the way in which 
it is entertained in consciousness ; and which 
differently entertained, would be something 
else. 



26 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

Or. True ; but an entity altogether in the 
orthodox sense, soul or spirit most certainly is 
not. In short, such could be said to answer 
simply to what is felt to exist and, say, to be 
seeing (or reflecting) as there is something 
seen ; and yet which no more has an absolute 
or independent existence than has what is seen 
(say visual light) an absolute or independent 
existence. How this is may be afforded ex- 
position and illustration as we should more 
particularly consider the perception of light. 



What is the Perception of Light ? 27 

8 

What is the Perception of Light ? 

Or. And what is the perception of light, 
what, but a consciousness of a somewhat, a 
somewhat which, as the mind is turned out- 
ward is seen as the objective, and as a thing 
outstanding, and as the physical, and seen even 
as a substance or matter as visual light should 
seem to be substance or matter ; and yet which 
somewhat, the same somewhat, as the mind is 
turned inward, is felt as is felt the subjective, 
and felt to be a thing instanding and perceiv- 
ing — felt as is felt the subjective, tho not felt 
and recognized as the subjective, as such, but 
as self, and self, perhaps, as soul or spirit, and 
the thing perceiving ? 

But now then, however that that somewhat 
is felt as is felt the subjective, and recognized 
as the mind is turned inward as an entity 
instanding, and as soul or spirit perceiving, yet 
still that soul or spirit felt is no more a some- 
thing inhering in or one with the actual entity 



28 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

(brain, or the conscious entity correlated there- 
with) z/zstanding behind the subjective (soul 
or spirit as felt) than is it as something seen, 
and visual light as the mind or consciousness 
is turned outward, a something inhering in 
or one with the actual thing and entity (prox- 
imately, ether vibrations) ^standing beyond 
the objective (visual light). In a word, no 
more than is visual light the thing primarily 
looked at but not seen, is soul or spirit as the 
thing felt to be that which looks, that indeed 
which looks, however much it seems to us to 
be that which does. Both the visual light 
seen, and the self, as such, felt, or the self, as 
soul or spirit felt, these both equally, as per- 
cept and concept respectively are practically 
but mental constructions put upon (or inter- 
pretations given) the somewhat aforesaid ; the 
one or the other construction being determined 
as the mind or consciousness is turned out- 
ward, or as it is turned inward ; as it is turned 
outward determined by the on-coming ether 
vibrations, or as it is turned inward determined 
by the cerebral agitation encountered. The 
mind or consciousness of the moment — and 
which by the way is that of the moment of 



What is the Perception of Light ? 29 

impact of ether vibrations on eye and brain, 
and no other — is first unconsciously shaped 
to view, and then consciously views one of the 
two mental constructions, or itself as it were, 
as the perceived, and an absolute entity out- 
standing — which it is not ; and the other as 
at once the conceived, and the conceived as a 
conceiver and perceiver, and an entity absolute 
instanding — which, at least a conceiver and 
entity instanding, it again is not. Wherefore 
it happens that that mind or consciousness is 
just as much in as it were, the perceived as 
in what is felt to be the perceiver — just as 
much in the visual light as in what is felt to 
be the self, either, as such, or as soul or spirit, 
perceiving the visual light. Meanwhile, in 
both instances, it is a mask only, of the real 
perceiver (proximately, ether vibrations, ulti- 
mately the one only Absolute Reality) that is 
perceived ; and, again, a fiction, " a counterfeit 
presentment " only, of the perceiver and con- 
ceiver (proximately the brain, ultimately the 
one only Absolute Reality again) that is felt 
to be such. So that the real perceiver and 
conceiver, the Absolute Reality, lends Itself 
to self-deception on two two-fold scores ; one 



30 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

as It thinks It sees what It is looking at> and 
that what It sees is a thing absolute and out- 
standing ; and another as It thinks what It 
feels to be a perceiver and conceiver perceiv- 
ing and conceiving to be veritably such, and 
to be, too, veritably an entity absolute instand- 
ing. 

Let it not fail to be noticed, and what I 
repeat, that the mind or consciousness involved 
in these constructions is that mind or con- 
sciousness obtaining in the instant of the 
collision of the ether vibrations with eye and 
brain ; that mind or consciousness, and no 
other, not that, even, of the minute before, 
much less that of the hour or day before. 
And the either construction is one or the 
other according as that mind or consciousness 
is given an inward or given an outward direc- 
tion ; the direction given determining whether 
the one thing, that mind or consciousness, 
assume visual light for content, or assume 
self, self perhaps felt to be soul or spirit, for 
content. 

What, then, here we have, and which may 
be said to answer to soul or spirit, as such, is 
what no more than is visual light, as such, an 



What is the Perception of Light? 31 

entity outright and altogether ; but is only an 
appearance of being an entity, which, an ap- 
pearance, it together with visual light that, 
too, only an appearance of being such, we are 
compelled of the constitution of things to 
regard as the two aspects, as it were, of the 
but one affair of the mental resultant of the 
impact of ether vibrations on eye and brain ; 
two aspects, one or the other according as the 
attention is directed outward, or again as it is 
directed inward. And it is that aspect as it 
were, and of an independent entity as it would 
appear to be, of two which is the one felt as 
is felt the subjective tho not consciously felt 
to be the subjective, as such ; and felt to be 
an entity altogether tho not one, and a con- 
scious entity seeing the light still that not 
seeing at all ; — it is this which may be said 
to answer in the consciousness to soul or spirit 
in the perception of light. 

And now then, as in the perception of light, 
so it is in perception in general, and in con- 
ception as well — in a word in the event of 
consciousness in general — and that what soul 
or spirit may be said to answer to is that which 
is felt as is felt the subjective, and felt to be 



32 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

an entity outright and altogether, and to be 
one conscious and seeing and conceiving, felt 
to be such still that nothing such entity it is, 
and much less the conscious entity which really 
has being, independent being, and which does 
indeed perceive and conceive and the like. 

Inq. But soul or spirit, as such, only an 
appearance as only which is matter, as such, 
then as should one be " only a group of qual- 
ities having no existence independent of the 
mind," the other would be only that: And 
however that the like is not true of matter as 
it is meant — which you say it is — to convey 
the idea that mind, and mind alone, is involved 
in matter's existence, still, if as much were 
indeed to be said of matter, the same would 
have to be said of soul or spirit, too. 

Or. Precisely. 

Inq. And that soul or spirit is only a group 
of qualities — or to that effect — having no 
existence independent of the mind ? 

Or. Truly so, — if in very truth, I say, as 
much were to be said of one, the same is to 
be of the other. 



Two Modes of Absolute Being 33 



Two Modes of Being Conceivable to 
Absolute Reality 

Inq. But then, at least, might not be pos- 
sible fundamentally to Final Reality two modes 
of being of which one could be claimed for 
soul or spirit, as should be the other for the 
physical ; two modes as are mechanical energy 
and heat two modes of one and the same thing, 
physical energy ; two modes, which convertible 
into each other as are these, are alternately 
assumed by the Absolute Reality in the course 
of inconceivable eons of time as relates to 
Being at large ; but in periods coincident with 
life and death as relates to finite or human 
being ? Might not at least thus be possible 
fundamentally two modes of being to the Final 
Reality, and in this way something like an 
approach be made to soul or spirit an entity in 
the genuinely orthodox sense ? 

Or. Perhaps ; and as might such be the 
fact, at least would be afforded a basis, in a 



34 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

way, for the determined claim for a spirit 
world as it is called. Moreover, with the 
two modes, the soul or spirit world, and the 
physical, convertible into each other as are 
mechanical energy and heat, and thus equiv- 
alents, neither the superior of the other, the 
soul or spirit world of no higher order than 
this world with which we are familiar, no higher 
and only different, — as this might be afforded, 
would be supplied explanation of why the 
grade of the intelligence assumed by some to 
be reporting itself from there is no higher 
than — if as high as — what is met with right 
here in this world. 

And yet supposing all this were true, what 
for the matter of anything gained thereby for 
soul or spirit an entity altogether, would it 
amount to? How still is that an entity in 
anything the orthodox sense which is one only 
as is mechanical energy or as is heat, things 
convertible into each other ? 

Inq. Evidently not at all so, I must con- 
fess. 

Or. True ; and besides, the mode of being 
of the Absolute Reality for any moment or 
cycle of time would not then be exhaustive 



Two Modes of Absolute Being 35 

of that Reality's capacity for being; and as 
not exhaustive, Its being would not any 
moment be infinite. And which is the more 
probable — that the being of the Absolute 
Reality obtains alternately after two modes, 
and the being — that is to say, Being — not 
any moment infinite ; or that It — Being — 
obtains after only one and is unchangeable 
and infinite ? 

Inq. I should hesitate to say. 

Or. Yes, you may ; but neither the Chris- 
tian, nor the theistic world in general, would. 



36 Hundredth Century Philosophy 



IO 

The Two Modes Not Coexistent 

Or. Besides, again, soul or spirit, and the 
physical, being comparable to mechanical en- 
ergy and heat, then once a given measure of 
the former converted into, once in manifesta- 
tion as, the latter — the physical universe, or 
the human body — as mechanical energy is 
convertible into heat, once this event, and, 
instanter, is that the end of that soul or spirit, 
as such, thus converted, thus in manifestation ; 
as much so as in the like event of the conver- 
sion of mechanical energy into, or of its man- 
ifestation as, heat, is that the end of that 
mechanical energy, as such, thus converted, 
thus in other manifestation. That is, such 
once thus converted, once thus in manifesta- 
tion in the physical does no more still obtain 
coexisting with that physical as back of or 
within and animating it than does mechanical 
energy once converted into, once in manifesta- 
tion as heat, still, as such, obtain back of or 



Two Modes Not Coexistent 37 

within that heat coexisting with it and animat- 
ing it. It would be in effect to say, once such 
as you yourself as soul or spirit in manifesta- 
tion in your physical body, or once such as 
"God " Himself as soul or spirit in manifesta- 
tion in the physical universe, that that for the 
time being, would be the end of both of you 
as soul or spirit. And could ever anything of 
this be said of either of you as were indeed 
soul or spirit radically and altogether an entity 
in the orthodox sense ? 

So that, has anything substantial been 
gained, I ask again, of real satisfaction for 
the notion of soul or spirit an entity, even as 
were allowed the Absolute Reality to obtain 
fundamentally after two distinct and inter- 
changeble modes, one of them being under- 
stood to be soul or spirit ? 

Moreover, is it quite likely, anyway, that 
that Reality obtains after such manner ? For 
at least this would have to be said about it as 
relates to that Reality at large, — and as I 
have before remarked, — that either of Its 
two modes of being or manifestation, as not 
including the other, would not as a mode of 
being or manifestation be exhaustive ; and as 



38 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

not exhaustive, could not be infinite ; and 
either the current manifest universe is not 
exhaustive and not infinite ; or then as it 
should be, any second or other mode of being 
or manifestation such as that of soul or spirit 
would be, — as should be self-evident to any- 
one, — an utter impossibility. Either horn of 
the dilemma may be taken — either that the 
present manifest universe is not exhaustive 
and not infinite ; or that in fact and indeed it 
is, and that another fundamental mode of 
being or order of manifestation of the Absolute 
Reality is not possible. Which will it be ? Is 
the former view very likely soon to be taken ? 
In any event, be all this as it may, soul or 
spirit only a mode of being of the Absolute 
Reality of which the physical should be an- 
other, is all that could possibly be conceded, 
even were that to be, as a possible approach 
(if approach it be) of such to an entity, an 
entity outright and altogether. 



Is the More Real the Less Realizable ? 39 



I I 

The Paradox of the More Real the 
Less Realizable 

Inq. I can understand, once the develop- 
ment of the egg into the hatched chicken, 
that that is the end of that egg ; or, once 
mechanical energy is converted into heat, that 
that is the end of that mechanical energy, as 
such, thus converted — the end at least until 
there is a revulsion (due to, no matter what) 
or change of heart, so to speak, of chick or 
heat ; and understand, too, what should be the 
parallel of this, and that, soul, once converted 
into or in manifestation as brain, or, say again, 
spirit, once converted into, once in manifesta- 
tion as the physical universe, that that is the 
end, for the time being, of such soul or such 
spirit thus converted, thus in manifestation. 
And you having impressed me with this and 
other considerations as you have, I must ac- 
knowledge little or nothing is gained for soul 
or spirit an entity, at least in the orthodox 



40 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

sense, by the assumption of two modes of 
being of the Absolute Reality. But I cannot 
even yet bring my mind to contemplating such 
as anything short of an entity absolutely, and 
as distinct utterly from physical after all. 

Or. But perhaps, in reason, cannot be 
avoided what you are so averse to. But why 
loth to think it less ? Why, look here, — 
every idealist, every transcendentalist, every 
spiritualist (using the word in the philosophic 
sense), every dualist, every metaphysician, 
every theologian, whether of present or past 
generations, contemplates such as soul (or 
spirit) as the most real thing of anything 
unless it be mind ; regards it as far more real 
than matter which is often fantastically an- 
imadverted to as even but its "shadow," and 
the forms of which or the physical world gen- 
erally, as but the " phantasmagoria " of mind, 
"the baseless fabric of a vision/' and so on. 
And yet, and yet, you and I can look across 
space and directly see and realize each other's 
physical body, still that we cannot in the least, 
each other's soul or spirit — cannot as being 
unable to realize each other's consciousness or 
mind at all. In other words, we can directly 



Is the More Real the Less Realizable ? 41 

perceive what is far and away the less real, 
but cannot the far and away more real ! — 
something altogether absurd to suppose to be 
the case, if soul or spirit were really the more 
real. 

Now what, in any common-sense view, is 
the most ready, as well as the most rational 
explanation of this paradox but that such as 
soul or spirit is not there — is not as an entity, 
entity distinct from the physical, there ; and 
that that is why we may not realize it as we 
do the physical body ? As such entity not 
there, — which is precisely what would be the 
case either as such as soul or spirit as distinct 
from matter or the physical was a difference 
of form of entertaining a thing only, rather 
than a difference between two utterly differ- 
ently constituted entities ; or, again, as it was 
only a difference of mode of being of one and 
the same thing of which the human body, or 
again the physical universe, was another ? 

Inq. Yes, but what would be the inevitable, 
stock in trade, and stereotyped reply to this, 
what but that " only are spiritual things seen 
with spiritual eyes M ? 

Or. Ah, but that is only arbitrarily to 



42 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

invoke into being both a vague order of eyes 
and a vaguer entity — arbitrarily since for 
neither of which is there either necessity, or 
the warrant of one iota of evidence or sound 
reason. Besides, it does not get over the diffi- 
culty at all. The point is how with any eyes 
you can better see the less real than the more 
real. It is not simply a difference between 
two things that is involved ; if it were, this 
little ruse of spiritual eyes to see spiritual 
things might pass. But it is the particular 
difference of more real, one thing than another, 
which sidetracks it as of any avail. " Spiritual 
eyes may be needed to see spiritual things " ; 
but that does not in the least get us over the 
difficulty of with any eyes the better seeing 
the less real than the more real. Such a prop- 
osition then would seem rather a makeshift 
than anything else of ignorance and stupidity 
to yet keep fast hold of the cherished fantasy 
of soul or spirit an entity absolute and one 
distinct altogether from everything both of 
the physical and the mental. 



Modes of Activity or Energy 43 



12 

Modes of Activity or Energy the Modes 

in statu quo and Modes a Change 

of Mode 

Inq. But now, if we may not know the 
Final or Absolute Reality, and It cannot be 
assumed one with soul or spirit, as is the gen- 
eral understanding of these, still must we not 
at least know something clear and definite of 
Its activity, however that our any intelligent 
knowing begin and end with that ? 

Or. Indeed we can ; but our knowledge 
even of that is limited to its modes, we know- 
ing nothing of it outside these, these we 
vulgarly recognizing, not as modes of activity, 
as such, but as matter, soul, spirit, physical 
force, and the rest ; and which, therefore, 
must themselves be understood as differing, 
(1) in themselves as different modes of activ- 
ity of one and same thing differ ; and again 
as differing (2) in appearance as the same 
mode might objectively, or, again, might sub- 
jectively occupy consciousness. 



44 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

Inq. And how are to be identified in con- 
sciousness matter, soul, and the rest with the 
different modes of activity, or with their dif- 
ferent aspects as differently entertained ? 

Or. Well, understanding modes of activ- 
ity as practically what are, in the parlance of 
science, modes of energy, we may say that 
there are modes of energy y the modes in statu 
quo ; and again modes a change of mode (or 
want of all mode, in a way), that is, modes 
which energy assumes in transitu from one 
mode in statu quo to another in statu quo 
again, the latter being what is to be under- 
stood as the activity of the former. We may 
say this, and then further that with the former 
entertained in consciousness objectively would 
such as matter be identified ; or as entertained 
subjectively would such as soul or spirit be ; 
while with the latter, that is, with modes a 
change of mode as entertained objectively would 
be identified such as physical force ; or as 
entertained subjectively would be identified in 
certain instances, if not in all, such as mind 
and consciousness. We may say this at least, 
to go no further. 



Mind or Consciotisness Not Primary 45 



*3 

Mind or Consciousness Not Primary 

Inq. But this would be to have what, as 
objectively entertained, is matter, or as sub- 
jectively entertained, is soul or spirit, under- 
stood as something antecedent to mind and 
consciousness. For, a mode in statu quo must 
necessarily be antecedent to a mode a change 
of mode, only with which, a mode a change of 
mode, it is assumed, consciousness obtains. 

Or. Yes, and logically at least, a mode a 
change of mode must be even itself antecedent 
to consciousness ; so that consciousness must 
be quite two removes, and not merely one, 
from being the one thing primary, or one 
among others primary. 

Inq. But the general view is that it is 
before all things, or at least coincident and 
co-ordinate with whatsoever else is before all. 

Or. And yet why should we even dream 
that it is ? Why indeed when my own, your 
own, consciousness comes only after the phys- 
ical, after our physical bodies — so far as we 



46 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

know. My own had nothing, nothing that 
anyone knows, constructively to do with the 
origin or formation of my body — which, only 
as we know it had, have we the slightest 
reason for supposing it primary. That is, my 
body and brain are not such as they are because 
of the activity, in the first instance, of my own 
consciousness in the matter which, for aught 
anything that appears to the contrary, is but 
an aftermath, or at most but their coincident 
and co-ordinate. Why, then, aware of this as 
we are, once ever dream that consciousness 
is fundamental either alone or with anything 
else ? 

Inq. Yes, indeed, why the any conscious- 
ness primary of which we are conscious ; but 
have we no evidence or reason for the belief 
in such of which we are not conscious, not 
directly at least, a consciousness in the back- 
ground, "subliminal," or shall I say "subject- 
ive," and having to do with our bodily and 
cerebral organization and development ? 

Or. But even as there were such mind, 
a cellar mind as it were, to that more above- 
ground with which we are more directly and 
altogether familiar, still as allied yet with phys- 



Mi?id or Consciousness Not Primary 47 

ical organization, our physical organization, as 
you assume it to be, it still, as so allied, is as 
open to all the misgiving, as in any case, of 
consciousness so allied as to whether or not it 
obtain an aftermath and caused, or obtain 
thing itself primary and cause, or possibly 
factor of cause, or obtain, indeed, possibly, but 
as coincident and co-ordinate. 

Inq. But, anyway, may not be, is not in 
fact, somehow, mind fundamental in relation 
to the physical ; mind if not as conscious, then 
as unconscious ? 

Or. But what do we know of unconscious 
mind except as mind first conscious ? Abso- 
lutely nothing. And what do we know of 
mind first conscious but of mind as still allied 
with, and apparently but the aftermath of 
physical organization ? Absolutely nothing 
again. Unconscious mind that was not first 
conscious, if there be such a thing, is so 
utterly beyond our any comprehension or 
understanding of it that there is not the least 
warrant for our recognizing it as mind at all, 
even if such in some form or other it should 
happen to be. 

So that the situation remains intact of con- 



48 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

sciousness, in relation to our any physical at 
any rate, as nothing primary. 

But now then, it not primary with us, not 
so with our physical, why, at least in the light 
of the universe an evolution, must we not in 
all reason again think it not primary as it 
should obtain abroad and in the manifest 
universe or the physical at large ? Or, if we 
must not, where then is the parallel between 
the universe and man ? — between the evolu- 
tion of manifest being in general, and the 
evolution or development of manifest being in 
particular and of the human being ? Except, 
I say, that we must, what the logical pertinency 
of the egg or the like's particular development 
as shedding any light on the order or nature 
of the fundamental process or processes at 
large ? 

Or as I might say again, except that we 
must, where even is the point to what in the 
language of the sentimentalists is so much 
shouted of man a microcosm to the universe 
a macrocosm ? That, most certainly, is no 
microcosm to something else a macrocosm 
which something else is in constitution in 
vital particular right the reverse of the thing 
in macrocosm. 



Mind or Consciousness Not Primary 49 

Inq. As much as all this I should say 
myself. 

Or. Very well ; but now to hark back, as 
we will say, for a moment to evolution proper 
again. Why must we not further in the light 
of that doctrine think consciousness not pri- 
mary when it is an axiom of it that only that 
primarily obtains which, only as it should 
primarily, can at all ; and when consciousness 
would seem from the conditions of the event 
of it within our observation of them to be no 
such thing that, to obtain at all, it must ab- 
originally obtain ? 

That is to say, it is only necessary that the 
capacity for consciousness at the outset exist 
that consciousness itself should, still that not 
in the beginning existing ; and it is only neces- 
sary, say, that the impact of something, and a 
certain something, on itself, itself at the same 
time having the power and impulse of its own 
for making of its own initiative the impact, 
prove the conditions of the event of conscious- 
ness that should obtain the capacity for the 
event in advance of the event itself ; that 
should, in other words, be void the any neces- 
sity of consciousness obtaining a thing primary 



50 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

to obtain at all ; and as void the necessity then, 
in the light of the fundamental axiom, already 
stated, of the universe an evolution, void the 
fact of its obtaining a thing primary — it 
coming upon the scene only later and as a 
development ; a development as is everything 
not primary, as the universe is an evolution. 
Only this is necessary, I say, while that what 
are the terms of it should be, as would appear, 
only precisely what we so strikingly meet with 
in the event, and the like of it, of the con- 
sciousness and perception of light should leave 
us with us with no sort of reason doubting 
that consciousness may and does obtain inde- 
pendent of any necessity of primarily doing so 
to obtain at all. Thus to all appearance, the 
event of the consciousness or perception of 
light is contingent on that other event of the 
impact of the physical on itself, the impact of 
ether vibrations on eye and brain ; for we 
never know consciousness in any event of it 
but as following on the event of impact of 
the physical on itself ; never know it to obtain 
independent of that event of impact, tho per- 
haps not always have positive knowledge of 
its obtaining on that condition. Neither have 



Mind or Co7isciousness Not Primary 5 1 

we at our wits' command one scrap of ratiocina- 
tive warrant why anything to the contrary 
should be assumed or even conjectured. So 
that, so far at least, the presumption is all in 
the direction of only the capacity for the con- 
sciousness or perception of light obtaining 
prior to the event of the impact of the phys- 
ical on itself ; only the capacity which that 
event of impact functions to convert into con- 
sciousness itself. 

Then again in this particular event of con- 
sciousness, what to us is the physical making 
impact on itself is nothing more nor less than 
the One Only Absolute Reality final and in- 
scrutable making impact on Itself, which yet 
entertaining only objectively, we recognize as 
the physical making it ; and that making it 
being the Absolute Reality, it is that making 
it which nobody doubts has all the power what- 
soever, is all the source whatsoever of all 
things whatsoever, and which therefore has, 
with the rest, all the power and impulse of its 
own for making of its own initiative the im- 
pact in question as ever it is made. And thus 
is fulfilled the only remaining condition where- 
fore all should be, of the capacity for conscious- 



52 Httndredth Ce7itiny Philosophy 

ness in advance of the event of it ; and where- 
fore should obtain exhaustively the presump- 
tion in the direction of that capacity. It is 
therefore, I say, something thoroly unreason- 
able, not to say absurd, to doubt consciousness 
being only secondary. 

Besides, to emphasize this view, it is to be 
borne in mind that never has anyone conceived 
a situation, or ventured to claim to have con- 
ceived one, nor is it, I venture to say, possible 
to conceive one which could be a most lucid, 
perfect, and complete illustration of the capac- 
ity for consciousness in advance of conscious- 
ness itself, if the conditions, as we know them, 
under which we see and hear do not furnish 
it. Indeed, there would seem hardly even the 
doubt of evolution being true, of it itself, that 
consciousness is not primary, being true. 

Inq. But it will be insisted still, that yet 
there is nothing in this line of thought pur- 
sued by you to dissipate altogether the bare 
possibility at least of consciousness occurring 
before, and independent of that event of the 
impact of the physical on itself ; and of that 
event being only an opportunity to let con- 
sciousness thru as might be a crack in the 
wall to let light thru. 






Mind or Co7isciousness Not Primary 53 

Or. Yes, but with the presumption all 
against it, the insistence on that bare possibil- 
ity is more than unreasonable, it is almost 
madness, — particularly when is considered 
that even were the bare possibility a certainty 
it would even then amount to nothing as any- 
thing in contradiction of what is the main 
proposition that consciousness is nothing fun- 
damental. For even supposing still that that 
obtain on tap as it were behind the event of 
physical impact, yet even that would not make 
it a thing primary ; does not make it a thing be- 
hind everything altogether, which at least it is 
utterly and absolutely impossible, logically, for 
us to think it to be ; and even impossible, as 
we think of it at all, but as we positively think 
it 7iot to be ; since, as I have before had occa- 
sion to remark, all that we know of it — and 
this we do most absolutely know of it — is as 
of an act or activity which, as still inconceiv- 
able but as the act or activity of something, 
something a substratum distinct from act or ac- 
tivity, is again at the same time inconceivable 
but as should that something, the act or activity 
of which was consciousness, be consciousness's 
antecedent ; and which as it is, then sometJiing 



54 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

is antecedent to consciousness even if it be not 
the physical event of the impact of the phys- 
ical on itself ; something is antecedent ; and 
that something is, is the real point, and the 
only real point in the contention. 

So that to lay stress on what is only a bare 
possibility, even did it exist, is emphasis 
placed to no purpose, as placed on what is 
altogether beside the real question, and is 
worse than wasted. To do so is at best but 
to push the inevitable antecedent a step further 
back ; it does not in the least get rid of it ; 
but rather only invites the demonstration which 
has just had our attention, of the utter impos- 
sibility of doing so. That the antecedent is 
not the particular one of the impact of the 
physical on itself is comparatively unimpor- 
tant ; and yet, that we must think conscious- 
ness is anticipated by something, and by some- 
thing pliysical too, — which the Absolute 
Reality as entertained objectively is, — renders 
it only the more probable, and shall we not 
say certain, that the impact of the physical 
on itself is that something ; that something 
functioning as immediate and exciting cause 
to convert into consciousness itself what back 



Mind or Consciousness Not Primary 55 

of it, and is that making the impact, is only 
capacity for it ; or is only, in other words, pre- 
disposing cause of it. The physical event of 
impact can figure only as immediate and ex- 
citing cause, and not as the cause altogether 
of consciousness, since that making the im- 
pact, and the cause of the impact are one and 
the same f hing which, as is the case, it is that 
making the impact and not the impact itself 
which could be the cause altogether, tho re- 
motely, of consciousness. Still, not until the 
event of impact, obtains that of consciousness 
itself. 

But now as it were to add clincher to 
clincher, to pile Pelion on Ossa, and put still 
further, as were that possible, beyond all ques- 
tion that consciousness, that mind in general 
indeed, is nothing fundamental, and to attack 
the subject from another approach. 

It surprised you a while ago that you, know- 
ing you yourself to have consciousness and 
intellect, in brief mind, might not yet, as I 
said you might not, reason back to knowing 
your origin and cause to be itself mind. 

Inq, It did, at least until I heard what you 
had to say about it. 



56 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

Or. Yes ; but, — to return to the sub- 
ject, — why should it? Why, why has not 
the direct offspring of your own consciousness 
and intellect, the offspring, say, a watch of 
your invention and manufacture, why has not 
that watch itself consciousness and intellect ? 
Why ? — why, simply for the same reason that 
your own consciousness and intellect are not 
themselves the offspring of consciousness and 
intellect. Knew you ever an instance of mind, 
simply mind, or even mind together with will 
and life to be directly the author of mind, or 
of will and life even ? Never. But you are 
familiar with ten thousand and a thousand 
times ten thousand instances of consciousness 
and intellect, or these together with will and 
life being directly the author of such as a watch, 
with never a trace therein of either conscious- 
ness, intellect, will, or life more than in the 
watch. 

And now then, so long as in all the history 
of any mind of which we have positive knowl- 
edge there is no known exception to this being 
so, we have all the assurance, that is to say, 
have the same ground and all the ground pre- 
cisely for assurance of the universality of the 



Mind or Consciousness Not Primary 57 

fact of no exception that we have of the 
universality of law. More than this, having 
all this assurance we are in all reason holden 
to have all the confidence, and to accept with 
all the readiness the universality of that fact 
and of the unbroken history of the impotence 
of the mind to produce anything such as itself, 
— that is our wont in the matter of the uni- 
versality of law. And if indeed there is no 
exception, then for an absolute certainty, and 
in truth self-evidently, there is something more 
and other than mind as also than will and life 
involved in mind's any reproduction as ever 
by whatsoever it is reproduced ; that is, as 
ever there is more original mind than ours of 
which ours is either a production or a repro- 
duction. And if something more and other 
than mind and will and life, which is to say 
something which is not mind, not will, not life 
is involved in our mind's production, then it is 
absolutely impossible to escape the logical in- 
ference that that same something — what is 
not mind, and not will, and not life — is in- 
volved in mind's first existence ; and that 
mind's first existence is a production (a devel- 
opment in fact) and not a thing primary at all. 



58 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

And thus on this quite another line of ap- 
proach, we come to the same conclusion we 
already before had found altogether unavoid- 
able ; and to a conclusion only a confirmation 
of that before, save that that already beyond 
dispute, nothing can affect to confirm. 

So that turn and turn again anyhow we will, 
and consciousness to our any possible think- 
ing, possible logical thinking, is not the one 
thing before all things, nor even one with 
another or others before all. Even as ever it 
is an attribute or even a function, it is such 
only as first a development. And as of con- 
sciousness, so of mind in general, any mind at 
least of which we can have the least under- 
standing, — there is nothing of it in " the 
beginning " ; it obtains only later and as a 
development as does consciousness itself. 

And this is all to say, that therefore it is 
nothing to the prejudice of the proposition 
that the final activity or energy obtains in 
modes the modes in (comparative) statu quo ; 
and again in modes a change of mode, the 
latter the activity of the former, and with 
which consciousness as identified must be un- 
derstood as thing consequent to something 
antecedent to it, and notJiing its primary. 



Matter the Spring of Consciousness 59 



14 

The Physical as Very Origin and Cause 
of Consciousness 

Inq. But then, too, a mode of energy the 
mode in statu quo which regarded objectively 
is matter, and antecedent to consciousness, 
the activity of which matter and the physical 
is to the effect, it is assumed, of consciousness 
itself, — is matter and the physical actually y 
as it would appear, even very the origin and 
cause of consciousness. 

Or. Yes, truly enough, if we will but at 
the same time not forget that if matter is, so 
is soul or spirit ; for matter, we understand, 
is only the same thing looked at one way which, 
regarded another, is soul or spirit. 

Inq. I know ; and not forgetting that, the 
physical would yet appear to be very the origin 
and cause of consciousness — at least as much 
so as is soul or spirit. 

Or. That is exactly so ; and, still, neither 
matter nor soul or spirit, as such y — as the view 
is taken of them just indicated, — is an entity 



60 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

at all ; and so neither of them, as such, can 
be the origin and cause of anything. It is 
only as both are something, something at least 
and simply, as a while ago I showed they must 
be, and the same something, — only as they 
are this is it that they could be origin and 
cause at all, and of consciousness, if so even 
then. It is only — to revert to our illustra- 
tion of the billiard ball and ring — as the ring 
is something, and that something the billiard 
ball as that is something independent of the 
mind, that such as the impact of the ring on 
anything could be with any positive result. 
And so now, it is only as matter and soul or 
spirit are something, something absolute, abso- 
lute again as being independent of the mind, 
— as is the something which the ring is, — 
and the same something, that they could be 
the origin and cause of consciousness. But 
as being that something, something absolute, 
absolute as being independent of mind, what- 
ever more they are, as being that, and that in 
its turn being one with the one only some- 
thing absolute itself of which we have any 
knowledge or even hint, namely, the One 
Only and Inscrutable Absolute the foundation 



Matter the Spring of Consciousness 61 

of the universe, it follows that soul or spirit 
and the physical could be, yes, even the phys- 
ical could be, as veritably that something the 
origin and cause of consciousness as ever the 
One Only and Inscrutable Absolute was. 

Inq. And so it is what we recognize as the 
physical and matter, whether it be that as we 
recognize it or not, which as making impact 
on itself could be very the origin and cause of 
consciousness as ever the One Only and In- 
scrutable Absolute Reality could be. 

Or. Yes, and there is no getting away 
from it either. 

Inq. But is, indeed, anything, is even the 
One Only and Inscrutable Absolute Reality, 
recognized as we recognize the physical and 
matter, is even that that origin and cause ? 

Or. Well, is it likely, is it in reason, that 
whatsoever not fundamental should be itself 
its own origin and cause ? Could anything 
to our understanding seem more self-evident 
or axiomatic than that that which is aboriginal 
should be author of that which was not ? — 
and particularly when the primary and subse- 
quent are constantly reappearing in the rela- 
tion of what would seem that of cause and 



62 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

effect, and the subsequent never known to 
obtain independent of what would seem that 
relation ? 

Inq. I confess, I should hardly think there 
could. And understanding the physical, as 
you put it, to be but the Absolute Reality in 
disguise, the Absolute Reality as it should 
appear to us as entertained by us objectively, 
it is easy enough to credit it with being the 
origin and cause of consciousness as ever 
anything was. But the physical as usually 
understood, something so radically and abso- 
lutely distinct and different from, and it would 
seem even almost the very opposite of, con- 
sciousness, — that such should be the spring 
of it I have felt to be altogether incredible. 

Or. But why any less so that the Absolute 
Reality should be ? If you did but know it, 
you are not in the least relieved of your diffi- 
culty on the score you name. For the Abso- 
lute Reality Itself in constitution affords all 
the contrast, every whit, and a more certain 
one, with consciousness than does, as vulgarly 
viewed, the physical. This is self-evident 
enough when is considered that that Reality 
is .sr^-existent, and anything of which It should 



Matter the Spring of Conscious?tess 63 

be the origin and cause would be but the 
dependently-existent, between which, the self- 
existent, as such, and the dependently-existent, 
as such, the contrast is, shall we not say, noth- 
ing less than infinite. And is the contrast of 
the physical itself with consciousness more 
than infinite ? — is it even ever dreamed to be 
more ? And if you must stagger at such as 
the physical being the spring of consciousness 
because of the great gulf fixed, as so would 
appear, between the one and the other, then, 
as you would be consistent, as the Absolute 
Reality is that spring, you must stagger still 
because of the great gulf fixed between that 
and the dependently-existent which is more 
than one which only appears, for it is one of 
unequivocal certainty. 

It will not do to say that it is more easily 
conceivable that an infinite self-existent vague 
Absolute Reality should be the author of con- 
sciousness, for that is entirely beside the point. 
Besides, the physical might be self-existent, or 
might be even infinite, for that matter. The 
point is — that appalling contrast ', and one an 
absolute certainty between the self-existent and 
the contingently - existent, whatever it may 



64 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

seem between the physical and consciousness ; 
that appalling contrast such that all this talk 
we have heard all our days about ourselves 
being made in the image of our creator proves 
unmitigated rubbish — the contingently-exist- 
ent obtaining in the image of the self-existent 
being simply absolutely impossible. And in 
truth it is only to be viewed an axiom of things 
that self-existent cause and contingently-exist- 
ent effect are of utterly distinct categories, as 
much so as are a ball and its motion, or a clock 
and its going or the time kept by its going ; 
categories that by dint of no ingenuity of 
logic can we, from knowing such cause's effect, 
reason back to knowing the cause itself, any 
more than in the illustration of the ball and 
the ring could we reason back to knowing 
whether indeed that in motion was sphere or 
cube or what. And it is this so obvious, abso- 
lute and certain a contrast, I say, between the 
self-existent and the conditionally-existent be- 
side the less certain and less obvious between 
the physical and consciousness, which is the 
real point ; and wherefore if one should be 
dazed in view of the one being the origin and 
cause of consciousness, he should in all con- 



Matter the Spring of Consciousness 65 

sistency be even quite altogether stunned in 
view of the other being so. But is he — are 
you quite stunned altogether with the more 
absolute and profounder contrast ? If not, 
where is your consistency ? 

Inq. And indeed I was busy hunting it up. 
But it must be confessed we are not always 
sensible of our inconsistencies. 

Or. No. But in fact, you cannot have 
anything of which something was the author 
but that that something as it was at last the 
author, and the real such, shall be of a rad- 
ically and totally distinct category from that 
of which it is the origin and cause. Why, do 
you suppose even that a hen is the author of 
the egg she lays, and thus herself, of another 
hen? 

Inq. I had always supposed she was. 

Or. Well, she isn't. If she were, it would 
involve that the first hen was author of the 
first hens egg y that is, the first egg from which 
a hen or chick emerged, — which no biologist, 
certainly no biologist an evolutionist, would 
for a moment contend or even allow; and 
what was the author of the first hens egg 
is the author of every egg which the hen 



66 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

lays, the every egg laid since that first ; and 
of course of the every hen laying an egg. 

Inq. And that author or origin and cause 
of the first hen's egg — what was that ? 

Or. Why, was what was not a hen, to be 
sure — or what a hen is not. And as what is 
not a hen or what a hen is not, was the origin 
and cause of that first hen's egg and first hen, 
so, again, what is not what would appear the 
immediate antecedent of that first hen — or 
what that antecedent is not — is itself indeed 
the author of that antecedent, and so on indef- 
initely until we bring up with a last such ante- 
cedent of which the author is the self -existent, 
and so of which nothing is origin and cause. 
It is the one and same thing, the self-existent, 
author in continuity of all hens' eggs and all 
hens ; and the immediate, too, and not simply 
the remote author as is generally the view. 
What a hen together with her environment 
is author of at the most are characteristics 
of the seeming offspring not shared in by 
the seeming parent. For the rest, the hen 
functions only for host for the protection and 
procession of the processes of nutrition and 
development of incipient life, life for which 
she is not responsible. But now from the very 






Matter the Spring of Consciousness 67 

fact that the author of the last immediate 
antecedent is self-existent while the first hen's 
egg and first hen and their long line of ante- 
cedents are only the dependently-existent, com- 
pels that that which is origin and cause and 
the self-existent should be radically and abso- 
lutely of another and distinct category. And 
can you imagine one thing more distinctly and 
profoundly different from another than is a 
thing that exists of itself and one which de- 
pends for its existence on another ? So that 
the physical as the spring of consciousness is 
not alone in contrasting so appallingly with 
that of which it might be origin and cause. 
And to return, I ask again where is your con- 
sistency in being overcome in view of the 
instance of it which has so much exercised 
you? 

Inq. But my consistency aside. It is not, 
as the physical is contemplated the origin and 
cause of consciousness, the matter of contrast 
in kind simply, and one of the two contrast- 
ing kinds the spring of the other which has 
taxed my credulity ; but contrast of such 
kinds as confronted me, that of an inferior and 
a superior and the inferior the spring of the 
superior, — it is this that has undone me. 



68 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

" How can the fountain rise higher than its 
source ? " — as is the familiar form of urging 
it. How could consciousness (or mind in 
general) if that be superior to everything else 
obtain in the creature and not in the creator ? 
This is the mystery over all, and yet you have 
not hinted of it. 

Or. No ; and because the cry is too fool- 
ish for notice. It was of little account as the 
universe was a creation ; it is of none at all 
as that is an evolution. But now a word 
touching it, as you have called it up. 

Those in the past who have attempted to 
make much of it, and those who still would, 
are precisely the same minds who will remind 
you that Final Being, or Being of God as they 
conceive it, is utterly inscrutable, and then 
straightway proceed to tell you all about it, 
all about what they have just declared inscruta- 
ble, unsearchable, and so on ! That is, they 
are minds of a class and of a training and of 
mental habit to be abashed at no amount 
of either assumption or logical inconsistency. 
Consciousness and mind in general is with 
them, as with the rest of us, the nearest to 
them of anything they know ; and that of 
which they know more than of anything else ; 



Matter the Spring of Consciousness 69 

and is what is superior to anything with which 
they are familiar ; and they simply assume, 
they do not argue it as it does not admit of 
that, simply assume it superior to everything 
altogether ; to everything even to what they 
are fond of declaring the inscrutable, and of 
which one would suppose they therefore knew 
nothing, and could tell nothing whether it was 
superior to or not. But this, that conscious- 
ness or mind in general is superior to every- 
thing altogether does not in the least follow, 
and is not true ; and indeed and indeed how 
could it, how could it possibly be true ? You 
and I and the mind and consciousness and all 
and all that we are, if only the contingently- 
existent, as it is assumed, how possibly could 
that, or anything of that, even our mind and 
consciousness, be superior to the ^^"-existent ? 
Nobody doubts the one, and who doubts the 
other ? But that the self-existent is self-exist- 
ent, that fact by itself and alone, makes it 
radically and absolutely both different in very 
kind and in very kind superior to everything 
that should be only dependently-existent ; rad- 
ically different from and superior to everything 
even to what with us is our superior, namely, 
our mind and consciousness, — which only as 



JO Hundredth Century Philosophy 

it is is it different in kind, and in kind superior 
to everything of the only contingently-existent. 
And how is it thus different and superior to 
mind and consciousness but as it is so in 
respects in which it is not such ? What is 
not mind and consciousness then, or at least 
something that is not, is superior to what is, 
— yet that should be utterly incomprehensible 
to us what that is which is, and which, incom- 
prehensible, how should not that be which was 
inscrutable, "unsearchable," and what "no 
man shall see the face of and live. ,, 

So that it is not the inferior that is the 
author of the superior, but the superior and 
the superior because it is not mind and con- 
sciousness, that is author of the inferior and 
the inferior because it is that. And thus it 
comes to this, that the situation, after all, is 
not one of the fountain rising higher than its 
source, but only one of a false estimate of the 
relative height of what is the fountain. 

Inq. I grant what you say to be the more 
rational view. 

Or. Well now, the sum of our reflections 
on the subject amounts to about this : that 
there is nothing more certain outside the cer- 
tainty of consciousness itself than that the 






Matter the Spring of Consciottsness yi 

physical — that is, than that what as enter- 
tained by us objectively is the physical — func- 
tions as the origin and cause of consciousness ; 
nothing more certain, again, than that what, 
and what only, obtains back of the event of 
impact of what to our recognition is the phys- 
ical on itself is capacity for consciousness, not 
consciousness itself ; that is, in other words, 
that not until the event of the impact of the 
Absolute Reality on Itself, knows even that 
Reality Itself anything of consciousness ; and 
nothing more certain, still again, than that 
that Absolute Reality with which the capacity 
for consciousness is lodged is of an as utterly 
distinct category from that of consciousness 
itself, as that of a ball is from that of its 
motion, or that of a clock from its going or 
the time kept by its going. 

It is therefore nothing to the prejudice of 
the physical, not even to the physical as it 
might be that, as such, as that origin and cause, 
that it is of the grievous contrast it would 
appear to be with consciousness itself. 

Inq. And thus it would appear that con- 
sciousness is not an attribute of anything ; or 
at least not such save as it is first a develop- 
ment. 



*]2 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

Or, True. And, moreover, with it first a 
development before ever an attribute, it follows 
that the Absolute Reality must have already 
been heading, have already gotten well under 
way for the manifest universe before conscious- 
ness once ever appeared upon the scene ; so 
that the dictum by an eminent psychologist 
that " evolution to work smoothly, conscious- 
ness in some shape must have been present at 
the very origin of things " is one without a 
shadow of warrant, the contrary having all 
the warrant in the world short of a mathemat- 
ical demonstration. 

Inq. But how would it be as consciousness 
were a function of the mind ? 

Or. But it is absurd to talk about con- 
sciousness being a function of the mind, any- 
way. It is absurd that that should be the 
function of a thing which itself the thing had 
had no existence but for that function — 
unless, forsooth, the function is author of that 
of which it is the function. Mind, so far as 
we know anything about it, is grounded in con- 
sciousness. Of unconscious mind which was 
not first mind conscious we know absolutely 
nothing, as I have before duly emphasized. 
Of capacity for mind before consciousness we 



Matter the Spring of Consciousness 73 

may know something ; but of mind before — 
nothing. And, of course, the absurdity of the 
foundation of a superstructure being as it were 
the superstructure's function is only too man- 
ifest. 

Inq. Now, all that you have said would 
seem clear enough ; and all the clearer for the 
pains you are so often at, in speaking of the 
physical as back of and the spring of con- 
sciousness, to say that it is the physical, or 
what at least as entertained in consciousness 
objectively is the physical, that is so ; to say 
that it is that as something, if not that, as 
such, that is. It is clearer since, otherwise, 
one might be disposed to ask of you a solution 
of a paradox ; ask you how it is that the phys- 
ical which is physical only as a somewhat is 
entertained in consciousness objectively is back 
of and the cause of that (consciousness) only 
as in which (consciousness) is the somewhat 
objectively entertained is it the physical at all, 
or is there a physical at all ? In other words, 
ask you how it is that that is back of con- 
sciousness and its spring which has no exist- 
ence until after consciousness ? 

Or, Yes ; but as it is, you understand. 

Inq. Perfectly ; all is clear enough. 



74 Hundredth Century Philosophy 



1 5 

Life and Consciousness Only What 

as Entertained Objectively is 

Physical Force 

Inq. You have said that a mode of energy 
the mode a change of mode what is the ac- 
tivity of a mode in statu quo, is, as objectively 
entertained in consciousness, what we recog- 
nize as physical force; but which, as subject- 
ively entertained, is what we are aware of as 
consciousness. 

Or. Yes, — that is, as ever we are aware 
of consciousness at all, it is what as entertained 
objectively would be recognized as physical 
force. But not always is that which as thus 
entertained is physical force, recognized, when 
entertained subjectively, as consciousness ; it 
will sometimes be recognized as life only. 

Inq. Then both life and consciousness are 
what as entertained objectively is known as 
physical force. 

Or. Yes, and both are a mode a change 



Life and Mind Only Physical Force 75 

of mode of energy. Both obtain in the crit- 
ical moment of one mode in statu quo breaking 
with itself to assume another in statu quo 
again, — and what would almost seem the lib- 
eration of energy, for that moment, from all 
mode. Both obtain at such time, and only 
in the event of the impact of the Absolute 
Reality on Itself, or what to our cognition or 
immediate understanding is the physical on 
itself. 

Inq. And as this was so, what then would 
you say is the difference between the two ? 

Or I would say that it, as objectively 
occupying the mind, is a difference much a 
parallel, in one respect at least, of that between 
a simple sound or noise and a musical tone ; 
a difference, namely, of rapidity of succession 
of modes a change of mode of activity or 
energy as the difference of rapidity of succes- 
sion of distinct sounds or noises constitutes, 
for one thing, the difference between a simple 
sound or noise and a tone in music ; the more 
rapid succession constituting consciousness as 
the more rapid does the musical tone. 

But what is a parallelism of the similarity 
both between life and consciousness as sensed 



y6 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

by us as things in continuity ; and again be- 
tween both these and a musical tone as sensed 
by us as a thing in continuity, — is even more 
impressive ; and the more so in that, in the 
one case as in the other, it is, in part at least, 
our inability to distinguish the intervals be- 
tween distinct events, owing to the rapidity of 
their succession ; and wherefore we take life 
and consciousness to be things in continuity 
as we do a tone in music. 






Consciousness Not a Thing in Continuity 77 



16 

Life, Consciousness, Self, and I or Ego 
Not Things in Continuity 

Or. To repeat, — life and consciousness if 
in appearance entities in continuity, that is, 
if so sensed, are so only in appearance, as, 
in reality, they each are made up of a rapid 
succession of altogether distinct, sudden, and 
instantaneous events, those events changes of 
mode of activity or energy, which subjectively 
consciousness fails to detect the intervals be- 
tween. 

Life is thus made up of a rapid succession 
of extremely minute explosions as it were, 
each to the effect of life; explosions conse- 
quent upon the impact of what appears to be 
the physical on itself, but of what is, in fact, 
the Absolute Reality on Itself ; and between 
which discreet explosions, the consciousness 
fails to realize the intervals. And the same 
is to be said of consciousness itself, only that 
the series of discreet minute life events, as 



7 8 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

then succeeding one another far more rapidly 
than those of life, are attended each by another 
event, a flash as it were, of consciousness ; but 
the flashes succeeding one another with so 
great rapidity that their sum y the consciousness 
with which we are familiar, fails to realize 
itself as such sum. 

But now then, if life and consciousness are 
not things in continuity, as would appear, 
neither is the "self" in "self "-conscious- 
ness," and the I or ego with which we are 
familiar, which, they too, are made up of the 
discreet selyes and I's or egos each synchro- 
nous and conterminous, as obtaining at all, 
with each distinct event or flash of conscious- 
ness of which the consciousness with which we 
are familiar is constituted ; these distinct selves 
and I's or egos themselves obtaining in rapid 
succession pari passu with the distinct events, 
the distinct flashes so to speak, of conscious- 
ness with which the selves and I's or egos are 
contemporaneous and conterminous. 

Thus, the color red, for example, is consti- 
tuted of 392 billions of ether vibrations per 
second. This means that there are that num- 
ber of impacts per second on eye and brain ; 



Consciousness Not a Tiling in Continuity 79 

and as many distinct events or flashes of con- 
sciousness per second; and, again, as many 
distinct instances of the self and I or ego 
obtaining per second ; but means, too, the dis- 
tinct events or flashes of consciousness follow- 
ing one another, and the distinct instances 
obtaining of the self and I or ego following 
one another, also, in such rapid succession 
that the consciousness, the sum of its own 
flashes which appears itself to be one thing in 
continuity, fails to detect the intervals between 
them; and wherefore they severally appear 
things in continuity when they are not. 

And so it would seem, and which is to be 
noted, that right have been, yes right, those 
philosophers or critics in philosophy who have 
maintained that neither consciousness itself 
nor the " self " and I or ego of self-conscious- 
ness is a thing in continuity. They were 
right as they insisted that such continuity was 
an illusion — which it is ; tho they had not 
quite at their hand the philosophy in explana- 
tion of the matter which it is here ventured 
to maintain. 



8o Hundredth Century Philosophy 



J 7 

No Direct Realization of Life or Con- 
sciousness Beyond our Own 

Or. I was particular to say, life and con- 
sciousness as sensed by us; for, as there is 
what we understand as objective sound so low, 
that is, so moderate the rate of succession, 
such the length, of the undulations of air ; and 
other objective sound so high, that is, again, 
so rapid the rate of succession, such the brev- 
ity, of the waves or vibrations, that the ear is 
not adapted to respond to them and we there- 
fore are unable to hear them ; so there are 
other objective life and objective consciousness 
so low, that is, so moderate the rate of succes- 
sion of the modes a change of mode of energy, 
and still other objective life and objective con- 
sciousness so high, that is, again, so rapid the 
rate of succession of those modes that we are 
not mentally constituted, in our present devel- 
opment, to respond to them, and thus have 






Only Ones Own Life Directly Realized 8 1 

a direct consciousness of the one as life, or of 
the other as consciousness. And, in fact, 
should objective life be as universal as are 
modes a change of mode of activity or energy, 
that which is the activity of matter, which 
activity likely is as universal as is matter 
itself, — and objective life at least might be, 
tho objective consciousness, since it is a more 
rapid rate of succession of such modes than is 
life, could not be ; — I say, should objective 
life be thus universal, we ourselves most cer- 
tainly must fall almost infinitely short of 
sensing subjectively and directly the whole 
realm of objective life ; almost infinitely short 
of sensing it as life. Indeed, we thus sense 
the objective life, only that, of our own bodies, 
such life outside them we having only object- 
ive cognizance of with dependence for that on 
objective and physical signs which, as might 
these be absent, as they often are, not even 
that objective cognizance have we at all of 
objective life as life. The obscure life, if life 
it be, of a stone, for example, — what cogni- 
zance objective even, to say nothing of any 
subjective and direct, have we of it? Who 



82 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

thinks to speak of the life of a stone ? Or, 
again, the life, if life it be, of a chemical reac- 
tion outside living things — what objective 
knowledge have we of that, of it as life, to 
say nothing of any subjective realization of it 
as life ? 






Paradox 83 

18 

Paradox 

Inq. But now you have said that mind, 
that consciousness, is such as a mode a 
change of mode of energy is entertained in 
consciousness subjectively. Yet this would 
be to have understood — what would seem 
paradoxical enough — that consciousness is 
consciousness only as somewhat is entertained 
in what (consciousness) has no existence until 
thus entertained ! But how is that, which is 
consciousness only as it should be subjectively 
entertained, to be thus entertained in what 
(consciousness) has no existence until thus 
entertained ? 

Or, In no way possible, of course, — that 
is, in no way as consciousness was assumed to 
be such only as thus entertained ; which, how- 
ever, is not at all assumed. On the contrary, 
quite the opposite is to be understood, — as 
has already been pointed out, — and that, pri- 
marily, what is a mode of energy a change of 



84 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

mode is, whenever consciousness obtains at 
all, to the effect of consciousness absolutely ; 
absolutely, that is, as being independent of 
being entertained in consciousness subjectively 
in order that it should be consciousness — 
which also it (consciousness) is, tho not there- 
fore is, as it should be entertained subjectively 
in itself. 

Once this understood, and all seeming par- 
adox, or absurdity, vanishes. 

Inq. Then, the situation is that it is con- 
sciousness itself — or that at least as it would 
appear to be — which subjectively entertained 
in itself is consciousness still ; so that all the 
difference between consciousness and some 
particular form or order, or all forms or orders 
of physical force is that between what, as 
it should occupy consciousness subjectively, 
would be consciousness, but which as it might 
be entertained objectively would be recognized 
as physical force. 

Or. That is it. 



Is Consciousness Universal? 85 

l 9 

Is Consciousness Universal ? 

Inq. You say, all the difference between 
consciousness and some particular form or 
order, or all forms or orders of physical force 
is so and so ; but which is it, some particular 
form or order, or all ? 

Or, One must a little doubt that it is all. 
And indeed if the ground of discrimination 
assumed a while ago between life and con- 
sciousness be valid, it would appear certain 
that it is not all. However, as it were all, it 
might be well in passing to remark that, sup- 
posing consciousness as universal as a mode 
of energy a change of mode, then brain (or 
soul) does not function as origin and cause of 
consciousness itself, but only as affording a 
sense of the ourness, so to speak, of so much of 
it as falls to us, and as determining the contents 
of that much, contents such as they are as 
bound and hedged about by finite, human, and 
cerebral limitations. 



86 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

However, as I said to start with, that con- 
sciousness is thus universal is hardly probable ; 
rather, it is decidedly improbable. 

Inq. But just to suppose it were, might 
not there then be said to obtain even yet such 
as the " Being of God " ? 

Ok No. First because consciousness, a 
sine qua non of such Being, is not the only 
sine qua non thereof, there being others only 
as which obtain does such Being Itself in the 
least obtain. And no, again, because if it is 
only a product or development, as I have been 
contending, then it is nothing primary; and 
as nothing primary it could be nothing of such 
Being who is understood to be what is alto- 
gether that. And then still again, no, because, 
as nothing primary, it could not figure as any- 
thing causal or as even factor of what was 
causal of all things, as again is understood of 
that Being. And still once more and finally, 
no, because the any universal consciousness 
in question, coming as it does only after the 
physical, is not of a content of things, present, 
past, and to come, but of content only of 
the life of things ; the same as it is only 



Is Consciousness Universal? 87 

of the life of the bodily organs, corpuscles, 
and tissues, and not these themselves, of which 
you and I are directly, that is to say subject- 
ively, conscious, — quite the contrary as is 
assumed of the Being of God the content of 
whose consciousness is understood to include 
all things whatsoever as well as their life. 



88 Hundredth Century Philosophy 



20 

Why not Conscious of Universal Con- 
sciousness should such obtain 

Inq. But now then, as consciousness ac- 
companied any physical force at all outside 
animal life, accompanied even, say, any chem- 
ical reaction outside, such as the conversion 
of oxygen and hydrogen into water, or the 
slow oxidation of a bit of iron, how should I 
not directly know of it ; how not be directly 
aware of it, and aware of it as associated with 
that chemical reaction ? 

Or. Well, how is it that you are not directly 
sensible of my consciousness, mine which goes 
with more or less of the physical activity of 
my brain, the chemical reactions of which are 
to the effect of, if not the cause of my con- 
sciousness, — how should you not directly 
know of that ? — how not be directly sensible 
of the consciousness attending those chemical 
reactions ? 

Inq. Yes, but I do at least know of it, 



Not Conscious of Universal Consciousness 89 

know of the consciousness attending those 
chemical reactions, even if only indirectly by 
physical signs ; but not even by these do I 
know and indirectly of consciousness attend- 
ing chemical reactions occurring outside the 
living animal body. 

Or, But you might not always be even 
indirectly aware of my own, for the physical 
signs might not be present still that conscious- 
ness might obtain ; as men often are conscious, 
as the sequel proves, still that at the time they 
could make no sign, and it could not be deter- 
mined until afterwards whether they were or 
not. So, that the absence of physical signs 
is no evidence of the absence of consciousness. 
And yet that you cannot, anyway, directly 
know of my own, which is to say be conscious 
of the consciousness attending the chemical 
reactions of my brain, and may not from the 
possible absence of all physical signs even 
indirectly know of it, tho, indeed, I may be 
altogether conscious, you still are affected with 
surprise that such as the chemical reactions 
in the event of the conversion, outside the 
animal body, of oxygen and hydrogen into 
water should be accompanied by consciousness, 



90 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

and you not have direct consciousness of that 
consciousness, nor even at least indirect knowl- 
edge of it ! This all, mind you, is not to say, 
as I would be far from saying, and as we can 
hardly in reason suppose, that every such 
reaction whatsoever is thus attended ; but only 
that if it were, why should you be taken by 
surprise at not being aware of it directly, or 
even indirectly ? That, however, there is con- 
sciousness attending some chemical reactions 
outside the animal body, there is reason in 
believing. 



How Signalized Modes of Energy ? 91 



21 

How Signalized in Consciousness Modes 
of Energy in statu quo as Matter as 
Brain? — and How as Brain as Matter? 

Inq. We are to understand, then, that there 
are modes of activity or energy the modes in 
(comparative) statu quo ; and, again, other 
modes each a mode a change of mode, these the 
activity of the former ; and that matter is an 
instance of the former, and physical force of 
the latter, as consciousness is occupied with 
them objectively ; and soul or spirit an instance 
of the former, and consciousness (or mind in 
general) of the latter as it is occupied with 
them subjectively. 

Or. Yes. 

Inq. Moreover, we are to understand that 
as the arbitrary discrimination was to be in- 
dulged in of soul exclusively one thing, and 
spirit exclusively quite another, it might be the 
particular ensemble of modes in statu quo 



92 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

involved in what as occupying consciousness 
objectively is recognized as brain which, as 
occupying it subjectively, should be contem- 
plated as soul ; when, as it was, the same 
ensemble of modes, with all other modes in 
statu quo whatsoever, which, entertained ob- 
jectively are recognized as matter simply, 
matter in general, would, as subjectively enter- 
tained be contemplated as spirit. 

Or. Even so. But let it pass for what 
only it was meant — a fanciful suggestion 
which yet in this connection might be needed. 

Inq. But what now I would like to know 
is, how the realization subjectively of what as 
objectively recognized as matter as brain (or 
brain and body), and as active, is signalized in 
consciousness ? 

Or. How ? Why, by the awareness of a 
presence ; a finite presence, and realized as 
one's possession ; and which the religious 
devotee translates in the vernacular of his 
faith into soul, and his soul. 

Inq. And how signalized the subjective 
realization of what as objectively recognized 
is matter, matter as matter, matter in general 



How Signalized Modes of Energy? 93 

simply, — how, the subjective realization even 
of what as objectively recognized as brain as 
it was brain as matter simply ? 

Or. Signalized as is realized in conscious- 
ness a cosmic presence ; a presence recognized 
subjectively to be as limitless compared with 
that of one's soul as is recognized objectively 
matter as matter to be compared with matter 
as brain ; and which cosmic presence the sub- 
ject of it understands, when not as a cosmic 
presence simply, then, in his ignorance or 
stupidity, as the presence even that of very 
the Being and consciousness of what to his 
understanding is " God " Himself. 



94 Hundredth Century Philosophy 



22 

No Direct Consciousness of Such as the 
Being of God 

Inq. Why say, " In one's ignorance or 
stupidity " ? Might it not be truly the 
presence of such Being, assuming such to 
obtain ? 

Or. Not in the least. And only ignorance, 
I repeat, or stupidity could feel assurance that 
it was ; and simply because we have no more 
reason to suppose such seeming conscious 
presence an entity outstanding the human 
mind, simply because we conceive it to be, 
than we have to suppose visual light to be 
from its delivering itself to be, and which we 
know positively it is not. We at best only 
rightfully infer that something outstanding we 
have brought up against, as we do when we 
have perception of light ; but that against 
which we do bring up and is outstanding is, 
as we have cosmic consciousness, nothing itself 
we more have a consciousness of than we 



No Realization of Being of God 95 

have of ether vibrations as we have perception 
of light. 

In other words, the cosmic consciousness 
which falls betimes to some or all of us is 
simply as in the instance of consciousness of 
visual light, the result, as only in all logical 
consistency can we suppose, of mental faculty 
quickened of the action on it of the physical ; 
and of the physical in the form of molecular 
agitation, even possibly vibrations ; but of 
those more general, if not universal in a way, 
than those involved in the ordinary mental 
activities. 

For, what logical business have we to assume 
consciousness to obtain under other funda- 
mental conditions, having once known it to do 
so under such as just named — or what busi- 
ness, save only as under the most positively 
determined other circumstances it may be 
shown to do so ? Or what business to assume 
in any case that of which there is conscious- 
ness, to be anything less or other than, as in 
other instances, a mental resultant or product 
which the mind lodges with an entity outstand- 
ing, but which no more, in fact, inheres in an 
entity outstanding than does visual light, as 



96 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

such, and which the mind confounds with that 
actually outstanding, ether vibrations, inhere 
in those vibrations ? 

Inq. You mean to say, in short, that 
cosmic consciousness is only the subjective 
consciousness to an objective consciousness in 
which the subjective no more inheres than 
inheres the color green — the subjective con- 
sciousness to the objective, that objective con- 
sciousness certain ether vibrations — in those 
ether vibrations. 

Or. Yes. 

Inq. But the more widely diffused form of 
the physical, say, more widely diffused form 
of vibrations — as must be those of oxygen or 
hydrogen, for example, than those of any com- 
pound of either, like water (OH 2 ) for instance 
— and those possibly and presumptively more 
ample, must be those of matter as matter ; 
but how should any such as these obtain within 
the confines of the brain, and to act on it to 
provoke the larger consciousness ? — how ob- 
tain where are those less diffused and less 
ample, and which, only that they are so, are 
those of brain ? 

Or. How ? Why, in the same way that 



No Realization of Being of God 97 

you may have within the same spatial limits 
the movement of the stream and of that of 
the eddy of the stream ; or may have within 
the same field the fundamental musical note 
and, too, its overtones ; the movement of the 
eddy being, or of the overtones being, matter 
as brain ; and that of the stream itself, or of 
the fundamental note itself, being brain as 
matter rather than matter as brain — brain as 
matter, that is, matter in general. And no 
more than becomes the stream extinct because 
of the eddy, or the fundamental note because 
of the overtones, are the more widely diffused 
and ample vibrations, those of matter in gen- 
eral, need we suppose, snuffed out because 
obtaining those less diffused and less ample, 
and which should be those of matter as brain. 
And if vibrations at large are still there, yet 
that are there, too, those such as constitute 
brain, they are there to act on and be reacted 
on by mental faculty as much as were they 
altogether outside the brain's uttermost con- 
fine. 

Inq. What, in brief, you would have me 
understand is that the consciousness of a some- 
what in cosmic consciousness no more implies 



98 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

a consciousness of the presence of the " Being 
of God," supposing there to be such, than the 
consciousness of visual light implies a con- 
sciousness of ether vibrations ? 

Or. Well, yes ; any other view is only to 
outrage all logical consistency. It is only 
childish minds and childish ignorance that 
jump to the conclusion that in cosmic con- 
sciousness there is consciousness of very an 
outlying independent consciousness ; as it is, 
too, only minds of no sense of logical con- 
sistency which will assume consciousness to 
obtain under other fundamental conditions 
than it is known to obtain under. 

Inq. But might not at least a still even 
higher development of human faculty than is 
implied in cosmic consciousness lay verily 
directly hold on independent and universal 
consciousness, if any such there be, and what 
were to be supposed, perhaps, that of the 
Being of God, assuming such Being to obtain ? 

Or. No, this is absolutely impossible of 
logical belief. I say logical belief ; for men 
can simply believe almost anything which it 
pleases them to believe ; believe without reason 
or against all reason — which is about as they 



No Realization of Being of God 99 

generally do believe. But they cannot logically 
believe that they can realize across one break 
when they well know that they cannot across 
another and similar one. What I mean by 
this is, that each knows that another's con- 
sciousness is not his own in continuity — 
not in direct continuity at least — knows that 
there is a hiatus between one's own and 
another's, in a word ; and that he cannot know 
directly of another's, and can know of it only 
indirectly, being wholly dependent on physical 
signs even then. 

Now, knowing that they cannot directly 
know, that is, realize, across a break in con- 
sciousness in this instance, they cannot logically 
believe they can across one in any instance 
whatever ; save only, of course, on the most 
positive and unimpeachable proof to the con- 
trary. If, then, there is that hiatus or break 
between our own and any universal or, as it 
should happen to be, Being of God's conscious- 
ness, it is absolutely impossible of logical be- 
lief that even any higher mental development 
of ours should enable us to realize across it, 
and we once ever be directly conscious of any 
universal consciousness, be it that simply, or 

toFa 



100 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

be it very the consciousness of " God " Him- 
self — impossible, so long as we are unable to 
be directly conscious of one another. 

Besides, cosmic consciousness is little more 
than cosmic emotion, anyway. It never in the 
moment of it seems articulate with some new 
truth or truths, some fresh discovery, or great 
invention — as would seem inevitable as it 
connoted an outlying independent conscious- 
ness, particularly as it connoted very such as 
the Being of God, connoted consciousness of 
content such as that usually understood to be 
content of such Being. 



Ours Not a Universal Consciottsness 101 



23 

Is ours a Universal Consciousness in 
Continuity ? 

Inq. But then might not ours be the 
any universal consciousness in continuity ? — 
might, indeed, there be no hiatus or break 
between that and ours ? — might not ours be 
at least like the eddy of the stream, one with 
the general current, only the general current 
with, perhaps, a twist in it, as it were ? 

Or. Possibly ; but the twist in it could but 
be fatal to its ever realizing other conscious- 
ness than such as itself ; that is, than con- 
sciousness with a twist in it ; which is to say, 
fatal to its ever realizing any such as is uni- 
versal which is consciousness without any such 
twist ; and so, as fatal to any such realization 
as would be a break in the continuity itself. 
Commotion of the water of a stream has only 
for its effect the distortion — when not the 
obliteration — of all reflections of objects in 



102 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

its surface. And so the wrench given to the 
any universal consciousness to become only 
finite could have for its only effect the distor- 
tion, when not the obliteration, of all reflec- 
tions of absolute truth in it. And we have 
no reason to suppose our own consciousness 
any better than such as should be universal 
with that wrench or twist given it. 



The World Wit J dn an Illusion 103 



24 

The World Within an Illusion as is 
That Without 

Inq. But, now, you have said that our any 
experience of cosmic consciousness is one no 
more of a consciousness outstanding and inde- 
pendent of our own mind and brain than is 
visual light such. This is much as to say — 
since it would seem the direct delivery in con- 
sciousness that it is more — that such delivery 
is as misleading, as consciousness is knowingly 
subjectively occupied as when objectively it 
is ; — but is it ? 

Or. Well, why not ? — or, rather, why not 
in all reason we suppose and assume it to be ? 
In every instance where it affects to deliver 
in percept or concept as to reality beyond, and 
where reliability of such deliverance is open 
to the test of experimentation and verification, 
the direct deliverance has always been proven 
to be false ; to be even the very opposite of 



104 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

the truth altogether. What is it, then, but 
downright idiocy to even dream that it ever 
delivers otherwise ? — to dream it delivers 
otherwise, as the attention is directed inward, 
when it does not as directed outward? It 
delivers visual light as an outstanding inde- 
pendent entity, which we know to be the very 
opposite of the truth as science has proven it 
to be ; delivers green to be in the grass, which 
again we know to be contrary to the facts in 
the case, and that but for the eye, brain, and 
mind there would be no green even in appear- 
ance there, — and so on to the end of the 
endless chapter of apparent external realities. 
Why, then, when it affects to deliver as to 
internal realities beyond percept or concept 
as such merely y should we not in all reason and 
logical consistency suppose and assume it, 
again, to outrage the truth ; and that again 
only the very opposite of its deliverance con- 
sists with what is true? Why not, rather, 
when, for instance, it delivers the "self " con- 
templated in self-consciousness as referring to 
or as being identical with a conscious entity, 
expect and assume that "self" to do or be 



The World Within an Illusion 105 

nothing as delivered at all ? Why not recog- 
nize "self" as but a pawn in the game, one 
of consciousness's own conjuring, and with 
which it itself juggles to its own deception, — 
why not ? And so the same as to such as 
final cause, subject and object, and the rest as 
these affect to affirm outstanding reality, — 
why not ? That consciousness brings up 
with percept, concept, and what not, as such, 
merely, brings up with them as something 
as it were of its own coinage, and never as 
realizing over that fence, unable even to con- 
jecture what is beyond, is what every intelli- 
gent and well-informed mind allows in gen- 
eral ; and yet allows in general, only fiercely 
to deny in the particular of its being so as the 
mind is turned inward. But why the excep- 
tion ? In sensuous perception, the faculty, 
soul, or what not, in virtue of which the con- 
sciousness involved obtains, is a constructive 
organ which functions, which sees, only con- 
structively. And shall we believe with any 
reason or consistency that, instanter, with the 
attention turned inward, what is a constructive 
organ undergoes a revulsion and revolution in 



106 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

its nature and function, and sees not con- 
structively but straight from the shoulder, as 
it were, to the thing itself and as it is in itself ? 
But this is just what everyone assumes to 
happen who assumes that the moment the 
attention is directed inward, the mind or con- 
sciousness delivers altogether inerrantly. So 
I ask again — why the exception ? What 
warrant for the gross outrage of the logical 
reason ? 



The Physical as Objective Thought 107 



2 5 

Always Objective Thought when Sub- 
jective Thought 

Inq. Doubtless those who assume greater 
integrity of deliverance as the attention is 
directed inward, do so thinking that then they 
bring up against what is only mind, instead 
of, primarily, against still what is the physical 
with mind only an adjunct or after-clap, as is 
the case when the attention is directed out- 
ward ; do so, thinking even that what, whether 
percept, concept, or whatsoever, occupies con- 
sciousness distinct from what occupies it as 
the attention is directed outward, is coined 
directly out of the mind or consciousness 
itself alone ; is coined by the mental itself out 
of the mental itself altogether without taint 
of the any fancied humiliation of contingency 
on the physical ; and must wherefore be 
" straight goods," as the street phrase is. 

Or. Yes, but with what reason ? Why 
fancy that then, suddenly, the mind which 



108 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

faces and the mind which is faced is mind 
which, if not primarily originating independent 
of the physical, still now at last persists inde- 
pendent of it ; persists like the blown soap- 
bubble, utterly emancipated clear of its origin, 
altogether unencumbered longer of any en- 
tanglement or relation with the physical, as 
is the soap-bubble, once blown, emancipated 
clear of its origin and the force that blew it, 
as it cuts loose and floats trancendentally 
away ? I say, why assume that it persists 
thus free and independent ; and assume even 
that it then buds and blossoms of its own 
initiative with fresh percepts and concepts 
quite as transcendently of the physical as is 
at least conceivable other soap-bubbles emerg- 
ing out of the original bubble, or out of each 
other independently of origin from the original 
bubble ? Why ? — only that it is so hard for 
men to break with the notion that mind is 
somehow first or last a free and independent 
entity ; and itself the author of free and inde- 
pendent entities, entities even themselves free 
and independent of everything but mind as 
mind is, as they imagine it, of everything 
altogether ? 



The Physical as Objective Thought 109 

And yet, it is a physical fact behind, or at 
least allied with, the spiritual fact in the only 
instances that we know positively what is 
behind or allied with the spiritual fact ; in- 
stances such as our own seeing, hearing, and 
the like ; that is, instances that cover in our 
own realization of the whole world of apparent 
external realities. What business, then, what 
business as one would be logically consistent 
I mean, has anyone to assume it ever to be 
otherwise, and to be so in the instances we do 
not know positively about ? What business 
have we, in other words, to assume as ever 
once there is objective thought, and that some- 
thing of the physical and complement of 
thought as it is subjective, subjective, that is, 
as it is in our consciousness, — that there is 
not always objective thought and it something 
of the physical — always as often as there 
is thought at all ? 

And, bear in mind, it is not enough that 
we are unable to observe, or to prove, in any 
other particular instance, the physical allied 
with the mental, and therefore warranted in 
doubting its being there still; but that we 
may doubt it only as there is the most positive 



no Hundredth Century Philosophy 

evidence amounting to the most indisputable 
proof to the contrary. What is the logical 
presumption has " the right of way " — it must 
not be forgotten ; and only the most indubita- 
ble demonstration of a contrary proposition is 
to be recognized as standing for a moment 
against it. The fact, then, which, in all reason, 
we must accept is that there is objective 
thought, and it something of the physical, as 
ever there is what we are directly conscious of 
as subjective thought ; that there is, equally 
as the most abstract concept is being evolved 
or entertained, or as is the most sensuous per- 
cept ; equally as the mind is turned inward or 
when turned outward. 



Objective Thought Not Always Verifiable in 



26 

Why Objective Thought (Objective 

Thought or Objective Association 

of Ideas) not always Verifiable 

Inq. I do not quite comprehend what you 
mean by unable to observe or to prove. 

Or. Well, when we have certain outlying 
ether vibrations reflected from a farm and 
entering the eye to be reacted on by it, or by 
it transferred to a certain cortical area in the 
back of the brain and to be reacted on by 
that and to the effect of a physical resultant, 
vibratory or other, accompanied by the per- 
ception of the farm, but not of the landscape 
or beauty of the farm, to have which we must 
have, as we must suppose, a reflection of that 
physical resultant from the first cortical area 
to a second whose function it is to discover 
the landscape or beauty of the farm, — or, 
perhaps, even to form or entertain a concept 
of the beautiful in the abstract — as it was 
the function of the first to discover the farm ; 



H2 Htmdredth Century Philosophy 

— I say when we have this, can we obsewe 
that primary physical resultant making impact 
on that second cortical area ? — or, either, have 
we access to the living active brain to enable 
us by any sort of laboratory experiment to 
verify what, still, the dictum of the logical 
reason declares is obtaining or taking place ? 

Or then again, when we have, as possibly 
in clairvoyance we have, perception of physical 
objects thru solid walls and a hundred miles 
away, and the clairvoyant sees in virtue of the 
X or other occult ray making impact directly 
on some region of the brain without the in- 
termediary of an external organ, organ external 
like the physical eye or ear — as indeed, with- 
out such, a concept is formed and entertained, 

— I say when, then again, we have this much, 
can we observe the impact of the X-ray, which 
is to say, the physical, on the organ, or cere- 
bral region, itself the physical ? — or is it open 
to laboratory experiment to prove ? And this 
is what I meant by " unable to observe, or to 
prove." 

It is here, I may add, assumed that it is 
still the physical making impact on the phys- 
ical ; for that the X or other occult ray should 



Objective Thought Not Always Verifiable 113 

be more refined, and, perhaps, not to be di- 
rectly realized by our ordinary physical senses 
does not make it the less physical. There is 
a range of the solar spectrum far beyond that 
of which the human eye may have direct cog- 
nizance ; and vibrations of air far too slow or 
too rapid for the ear to respond to ; and, yet, 
which no one even thinks to entertain but as 
still physical. The magnet attracts by an 
invisible impalpable force bits of steel, and 
the earth is held in its course by the sun 
ninety-five millions of miles away ; and yet 
nobody doubts either magnetism or the attrac- 
tion of gravitation to be physical. The limits, 
or in other words, the height and depth, of 
the physical, even no scientist affects to have 
yet sounded, or quite ever expects to sound ; 
and with much less grace may men of only 
average intelligence, and with no facilities 
for discovering the physical's bounds, affect 
to already know them. But only as once it is 
done may the confines of the physical be 
assumed to fall short of those of the mind, 
and not be inevitably correlated therewith. 

Inq. And still do we not hear of mind and 
consciousness as were such in mid-air as it 



114 Hundredth Century PJiilosophy 

were, and an independent entity ; and hear of 
percepts and concepts and so on being coined 
themselves, too, up among the clouds clear of 
the earth and the earthy, and even coined out 
of each other, as well as forged out of mind 
itself ? And do we not hear of percepts being 
molded and matted together and subjected to 
a sort of mental hydraulic pressure, or other 
jugglery, when straightway they come forth 
concepts, or come forth intuitions ? And does 
not " association of ideas" — phrase "coin of 
the realm " — carry with it the impression of 
ideas associating directly of themselves with- 
out " intercessor," and as were they independ- 
ent of everything of a lower strain such as the 
physical is supposed to be ? 

Or. Hear? — do we not hear? Oh yes, 
from every mental philosopher that ever drew 
the breath of life — and even from the modern 
psychologist as well. But it is naked to the 
bone of every bit of flesh of fact or rational 
thought to make it living truth. Hear ? — oh 
yes ; and yet all goes to make it too plain to 
be rationally doubted that behind the minutest 
mental event there is the correlated physical 
event its inevitable logical precursor ; and that 






Objective Thought Not Always Verifiable 115 

even behind \ right in that very physical, is 
where all the positive activity, all the elabora- 
tion of whatsoever mental result takes place, 
and to which the coming of that mental 
climacteric upon the scene is only as passive 
aftermath ; and that it all goes on there pre- 
cisely the same as it is in the differently 
colored glass slides and their manipulation 
back of the different colored lights thrown 
upon the screen or stage, back of these where 
all positive activity goes on to which the differ- 
ent colored lights themselves are due and are 
only as passive aftermath. That is, the light 
does not labor with itself to produce those 
different colors thrown upon the screen or 
stage ; and no more does consciousness wrestle 
with itself as might proceed the " association 
of ideas," or what passes for the consolidation 
of percepts or concepts with an outcome of an 
intuition or whatsoever, as tho they acted 
purely of their own initiative ; but the activity 
and result is all logically first behind in the 
physical which is itself, as it were, the colored 
slides and their manipulation. 

Inq. In all this you have been meaning 
to insist that the conditions fundamentally of 



n6 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

consciousness are the same equally as the 
mind is turned inward as when turned out- 
ward ; equally as any whatsoever content is 
involved whether percept or concept ; and that 
those conditions are identified with the phys- 
ical — or what at least viewed objectively is 
the physical. 

Or. Certainly ; and that being the case, 
then it is only logical to suppose and assume 
if consciousness in its direct delivery goes 
wildly astray as to what is beyond or more 
than the percept simply, as such, as the atten- 
tion is directed outward, that it goes wildly so 
again as to anything over or beyond the con- 
cept as such as the attention is directed 
inward ; and that it is positively illogical, and 
even imbecile, to suppose and assume it does 
not. 

Inq. I understand ; and it would seem as 
you say. 

Or. Yes ; and so for example in matter of 
the " self " of " self "- consciousness. If alliance 
with the physical in every instance of mental 
activity is, as a consequence, tantamount to a 
veil, a wall, before everything beyond as the 
mind is turned outward y then why not alliance 



Objective Thought Not Always Verifiable 1 1 7 

with the physical in every instance of mental 
activity, as a consequence, tantamount to a 
veil, a wall, before everything as the mind is 
turned inward? And so, even as I turn to 
perceive myself, as there is mental activity 
involved, and with that mental activity in that 
moment is allied the physical, and alliance 
with the physical is tantamount to a veil, a 
wall, that I should not see or realize beyond, 
then why not a veil, a wall, intercepting my 
seeing, my realizing, the conscious entity I am 
supposed to be conscious of, as I turn to see, 
to realize, that ? Why do I not then see and 
realize only a fiction, only a something which 
I take to be an entity independent and con- 
scious, but which is neither? Why do I not, 
as when I look at ether vibrations I see and 
realize only the interposing fiction of visual 
light ? 



1 1 8 Hundredth Century Philosophy 



27 

Why Not Directly Conscious of One 
Another ? 

Inq. You noted a while ago that we cannot 
be directly conscious one of another's con- 
sciousness ; and that the presumption, there- 
fore, is that we never are and could never be 
thus conscious of a universal consciousness if 
there were any ; or, at least, save only as our 
own was that any universal in continuity : but 
is not telepathy consciousness of another's 
consciousness ? 

Or. No, not at all. Telepathy, anyway, 
is very, very rare ; but, as ever it occurs, it 
is consciousness, at the most, only of the 
contents of another's consciousness, never 
of another's consciousness itself — never. 
Never consciousness of another's conscious- 
ness, which itself must be realized, and realized 
as that another's, to realize a given content as 
content of that another's rather than merely 
of one's own consciousness. 



Why Not Directly Conscious Yoil of Me ? 119 

Inq. What, then, can be the explanation 
that I cannot be directly conscious of your 
consciousness ? — be directly conscious of you ? 

Or. Well, that you cannot be — that, but 
for physical signs, you could not know of my 
consciousness, know of me, know of my exist- 
ence — is a very astonishing not to say as- 
tounding fact. And yet, it is one which, 
perhaps, has in it the confirmation, or the 
undermining, of any otherwise seemingly in- 
contestable philosophy of mind, notwithstand- 
ing no explanation, so far as I know, has ever 
even been attempted ; notwithstanding it is 
practically ignored as having any possible 
bearing on the philosophy of mind or even of 
consciousness itself. But what is the only 
possible explanation that I can think of is 
that involved as consciousness should be like 
light (or of which light is an illustration) ; 
like light in that it obtains objectively — as 
we have already given reasons for affirming 
it does — as also subjectively. As obtaining 
objectively it is, in a way, something lying 
abroad, as light objectively is something lying 
abroad and in the form of ether vibrations. 
And as light subjectively, that is, visual light, 



120 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

the only light we know anything directly and 
positively of, has no being until that which is 
objective light, which is to say certain ether 
vibrations, encounters the eye and brain, — so 
consciousness subjectively, that is, conscious- 
ness as we familiarly know it and the only 
consciousness we know anything directly and 
positively about, has, it too, no being until what 
is objective consciousness encounters brain, or, 
at least, nervous tissue. 

Inq. What ! — consciousness like light ? 
Why, it is as if you, instead of saying that 
what as ether vibrations is light objectively, 
had said was consciousness objectively. 

Or. Exactly so. 

Inq. And had said that only as that which 
is objective consciousness collides with brain 
(or at least with what, as looked at object- 
ively is brain) does what is to be under- 
stood as subjective consciousness — the only 
consciousness with which we are directly 
familiar — obtain, and with visual light for 
content. 

Or. Exactly so, again. And so also of 
objective sound, and, in fact, thru the whole 
gamut of our experiences in consciousness as 



Why Not Directly Conscious You of Me ? 121 

respects the external universe, — and the in- 
ternal universe, too, as I was endeavoring to 
say ; that is, the same when the mind is 
turned inward as when turned outward. For, 
as only a little while ago I was most stren- 
uously insisting, we have no business, no logi- 
cal business, to assume anything else but that 
as are once the conditions fundamentally of 
consciousness, so ever are the conditions of it. 
If then, once it is known only to obtain with 
the impact of something on something, the 
former functioning as objective consciousness 
as the fundamental terms of its obtaining, 
then always are these the terms, equally as 
the mind is directed inward as when directed 
outward, equally as a concept is entertained as 
when a sensuous percept is. If, as attention 
is directed outward, consciousness, such as we 
directly know, obtains as obtains objectively 
and lying abroad the like of objective light and 
objective sound, something physical function- 
ing as objective consciousness and making 
impact on brain, brain as faculty, then, too, 
as the attention is directed inward, conscious- 
ness obtains only as there obtains objectively 
and lying abroad the parallel of objective light 



122 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

and objective sound functioning as objective 
consciousness, and making impact on brain, 
brain as faculty. And thus we are to under- 
stand that there is objective consciousness as 
well as the consciousness only with which we 
are directly familiar; objective consciousness as 
well as what, as its correlate, we are compelled 
to recognize as subjective consciousness — as 
ever there is consciousness at all. 

Besides, as if to confirm the view here 
taken, it is, remember, I say remember, the 
only one conceivable as affording the least 
explanation of why we are not and cannot be 
directly conscious of one another's conscious- 
ness, be directly conscious of one another. 
This view, however, affords it fully, affords it 
to perfection. 

For, as everybody should know who pre- 
tends to an understanding of the current 
theory of light, the rays of light, that is, of 
objective light, in other words, the certain 
ether vibrations which enter my eyes, are not 
at all the same which enter another's eyes ; 
and as I can see only the light of the rays 
entering my eyes and which my eyes and 
brain convert into visual light, and another 



Why Not Directly Conscious You of Me ? 123 

sees only the light of the rays entering his 
eyes and which his eyes and brain convert 
into visual light, neither I see the visual light 
which he sees, nor he that which I see. In a 
word, neither of us sees the light the other sees, 
nor can. And as in the instance of conscious- 
ness with visual light for its content, so in every 
instance of it ; every instance of it, or of con- 
sciousness in general ; every instance of it, as 
much when the attention is directed inward 
as when directed outward. 

The rays, so to speak — paraphrasing in a 
way what I have just now said of light, that 
the idea I am seeking to convey may be readily 
understood — the rays of objective conscious- 
ness, that is of an objective somewhat to be 
distinguished as objective consciousness (and 
which in the particular case of light is known 
to be ether vibrations), these rays, which make 
impact on my brain and are converted into 
subjective consciousness, — the only conscious- 
ness with which I am directly familiar, — are 
not the same rays which come into relations 
with another s brain and by it are converted 
into subjective consciousness or the only con- 
sciousness of which he has direct knowledge. 



124 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

And as in a particular instance of conscious- 
ness, that of the perception of light, so with 
consciousness in general; as I myself am 
aware of only that consciousness which the 
rays of whatsoever objective consciousness en- 
countering my brain provoke, and another is 
aware of only the consciousness which the 
rays of objective consciousness encountering 
his brain provoke, so neither am I aware, nor 
can be, of the consciousness he is aware of, nor 
he of that of which I am aware. In a word, 
neither of us has direct knowledge of the 
other's consciousness, nor can have. 

Inq. Well, certainly, with such a view of 
the subject, the solution of the problem of the 
impossibility of our directly recognizing one 
another is easy enough and, too, as illuminating 
as it is easy. 

Or. But, more than this, there is nothing 
in the least improbable in it all. And, in fact, 
it itself and alone might almost be said to be 
crucial of our any assumed right understand- 
ing of mind, or even of consciousness itself. 
Besides, there is at least collateral suggestion, 
if not absolute proof of its truth. 

Of course, it is objective light understood as 



Why Not Directly Conscious You of Me ? 125 

objective light which is susceptible of reflec- 
tion, refraction, and so on, and wherefore visual 
light is thus susceptible. But objective light 
understood as objective consciousness would 
be equally so. And subjective light, or con- 
sciousness with visual light for content, — 
what can only be understood but as subject- 
ive consciousness as objective light is under- 
stood as objective consciousness, — must, as 
thus understood as subjective consciousness, 
be equally susceptible as when understood as 
subjective light; and be equally so, again, as 
much because objective consciousness is so, 
as that subjective light, as consciousness with 
visual light for content, is thus susceptible 
because objective light, as such, is so. 

Still further, even. What we are to under- 
stand as subjective consciousness, or that only 
consciousness with which we are directly fa- 
miliar, being thus susceptible in the instance 
of consciousness of light, the presumption is 
that it is always thus susceptible, as ever con- 
sciousness obtains ; as much so, indeed, as the 
attention is directed inward as when directed 
outward ; and thus susceptible, too, as in the 
instance of light again, because of a correlate 



126 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

objective consciousness logically being first 
thus so. 

And so, is it nothing in confirmation of this 
that consciousness should appear susceptible 
of such as reflection, refraction, and so on, 
as well when mind is turned inward as when 
turned outward ? — as well when it is enter- 
taining a concept as when a sensuous percept ? 
Is it nothing, I say, in confirmation of this, 
that in self-consciousness, as it would seem to 
be, it is consciousness as reflected that we are 
then conscious of ? Or, again, that in will, 
intellect, and moral sense (or, more properly, 
feeling, will, and intellect) we have, as would 
appear, the unit of mind and consciousness re- 
fracted, as in the primary colors of red, green, 
and blue we have the sunlight refracted ? Or 
that, still again, in multiple personality we 
have, possibly, what might have its explana- 
tion in the mind's double refraction — and so 
on, and so on ? 



Why Not See Your Own Brain as Such ? 127 



28 

Why the Physical is not Recognized as 
such as the Mind is Directed Inward 

Inq. This, certainly, all seems plausible 
enough in the extreme, — all save one thing, 
which yet is not quite clear to me, and that is 
just how, as the mind turns from a look out- 
ward to a look inward, we are still to conceive 
of objective consciousness, and of such as is 
physical activity even, activity vibratory or 
other ; or how, as obtaining, doing so as 
obtaining objectively and lying abroad. 

Or. Well, it is not quite clear to you 
because, in the first place, you, as do we all, 
naturally enough expect as the mind is turned 
inward, and the things seen are seen to be 
interior, that the any physical activity — as 
there should be such there obtaining and func- 
tioning as objective consciousness — should 
itself be interior, too; that is, obtain within, 
within the mind, and even be recognized as 
the physical which it is; — you expect this, 



128 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

but, at the same time, quite forgetting that 
the physical, as ever it is recognized as such, 
is so recognized because it is seen to be 
objective, — not seen to be objective because 
it is physical, — and seen to be objective 
because it is, in fact, so ; is in fact so, that is, 
is in fact altogether outside mind and brain ; 
which is to say, of course, that, as in fact it 
might not be outside, and was within mind 
and brain as it is supposed to be as the mind 
is turned inward, it could not be seen to be 
objective, and, not seen to be, it could not be 
recognized as physical, however much so it 
would be, did we but see it objectively. 

Indeed, even tho the mind were filled to the 
brim, so to speak, with the physical — as, in 
fact, it is so filled, filled with brain, for every- 
body allows the brain to be spatially within 
the sphere of the mind, if not the author of 
it — the mind yet, as turned inward, recognizes 
nothing of that physical as such, nothing of 
that brain as brain, but, as seeing it at all, 
sees it only as mind, mind or spirit, or that 
sort. In very truth, when you are looking 
outward at ether vibrations, you are looking 
at the very identical thing (as being physical) 



Why Not See Your Own Brain as Such ? 129 

which you are looking at when you are looking 
inward at the brain. But, in the former case, 
you do not see ether vibrations as such, but 
as visual light what is only mind in a way — 
mind eject or mind product — and yet see it 
as physical because you see it as objective ; 
and see it as objective because it is objective 
in fact, is, in fact, organically outside altogether 
both mind and brain ; while in the latter 
instance, you do not see the brain as such, 
that is as physical, but as mind or mind prod- 
uct, spirit or the sort, because it is not seen 
to be objective, — and not seen to be, because 
it is not in fact so ; and not seen to be so, 
and not in fact so, it cannot be seen to be 
physical. 

Then, in the second place, it is because, — 
to say nothing of the possible more interior 
organ than such as eye or ear, and one 
responsive to possible other and finer vibra- 
tions of the all-pervading ether, yet of any- 
thing of which we know positively nothing, — 
you fail to recognize and appreciate the enor- 
mous fund of registered cerebral activity, 
vibratory or other, activity correlated with 
every experience in consciousness since its 



130 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

dawn, and cumulative with the persistence of 
every waking moment ; and activity registered, 
or the conscious experience that goes with it 
could not be recalled ; — it is because, I say, 
you fail to recognize and appreciate this fund 
which, more or less of it as from one or another 
provocation recalled, can only be conceived 
but as functioning as objective consciousness. 
Then, finally, it is not clear to you because 
you are under the impression that obtaining 
objectively and lying abroad must mean — and 
which, perhaps, it would usually be understood 
to, and yet not necessarily, and is not here 
meant to — obtaining outside brain and mind 
altogether. But registered experiences — by 
which, of course, should be understood the 
correlated physical and cerebral activity their 
invariable accompaniment and dependence — 
as recalled, and functioning as objective con- 
sciousness, obtain in a way as obtaining ob- 
jectively and lying abroad ; obtain as obtaining 
outside the particular brain involved in the 
registration, and not as outside the brain alto- 
gether. 



Is It Vibrations as Such ? 131 



29 

Is it Vibrations as Vibrations, or Vibra- 
tions only of a Particular Thing, which 
are the Cause, or Occasion, of Con- 
sciousness ? 

Inq. But there does, after all, occur to me 
still something further, in this connection, 
involving some confusion of understanding. 
Thus, consciousness is found obtaining with 
the impact on brain of very different things 
functioning as objective consciousness ; very 
different, such as ether vibrations in the case 
of light, and as air vibrations in the case of 
sound ; — how is that ? One would not sup- 
pose objective consciousness could be two or 
more radically and utterly different things. 

Or, Well, the meaning of this is either that 
it is the vibrations of no particular thing ; that 
is, that it is vibrations as vibrations simply ', 
a purely mechanical thing, and might be the 
vibrations of anything, which is the cause, or 
occasion, of consciousness ; or else, what is the 
only possible alternative, namely, that it is the 



132 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

vibrations of some particular thing only, and 
that such as air or oxygen and hydrogen are but 
modes of being of that some particular thing, 
and ether itself only still another mode of being 
of it ; only still another mode of being of one 
and the same thing of which such as air or 
oxygen and hydrogen are modes or sub-modes. 
This, I say, is the only possible alternative ; 
else, it is vibrations as vibrations, a purely 
mechanical thing, which is cause, or occasion, 
of consciousness. 

Inq. This explanation, I should say, meets 
the case perfectly. And I now have a solu- 
tion, illuminating and satisfying in the extreme, 
of the problem why we are not and cannot be 
directly conscious of one another's conscious- 
ness ; why I am not and cannot be directly 
conscious of you, or you of me ; as also how 
objective consciousness may superficially be 
very different things. Moreover, I should 
suppose, as you have said, that a solution of 
the enigma of why we are not directly con- 
scious of one another must be itself and alone 
well-nigh crucial of the soundness of any phi- 
losophy of mind and consciousness, which, as 
affording none, could but well be set down for 
error, root and branch. 



What is Permanent is of Necessity 133 



30 

Whatever is, as It it is Permanent, is of 

Necessity 

Inq. What would you say is at least one, 
if not the only, fundamental and starting 
principle or proposition in philosophy ? 

Or. Why, that whatever is, as it is per- 
manent, is of necessity ; that the universe is 
because it must be. 

Inq. How should you say that ? How do 
we know that ? 

Or. We don't know it ; we only know that 
such is the constitution of the unterrified and 
untrammeled human mind that it has to think 
that whatever is that is permanent is of neces- 
sity, as ever it essays to think, think as realiz- 
ing in the matter at all ; or we only know, 
again, that so surely as the universe is an evo- 
lution so surely is it one of necessity. For 
with the universe an evolution is absolutely 
impossible everything of universe as watch 
and watchmaker, watchmaker whether outside 
the watch or inside. And the universe not 






134 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

as watch and watchmaker is the universe an 
involuntary one, which is to say one of neces- 
sity ; for there is absolutely again no halting 
station between the universe not as watch and 
watchmaker and the universe one of necessity. 

Inq. And so you would affirm that as there 
is anything permanent it is because it must be ; 
and such as it is it is because it must be. 

Or. I would. 

Inq. And would say, then, as there was 
what we recognize as act or activity, act or ac- 
tivity creative after a sort, creative as tempered 
of the doctrine of evolution, — that such there 
must be ; must be as ever must there be any- 
thing at all. That is, that act or activity ob- 
tains because it must, and it takes the round 
of evolution and involution because it must, 
must as there is to be act or activity at all ; 
and must as must there be that act or activity 
at all to be anything whatsoever at all. 

Or. Truly so. 

Inq. Yes, and say again, that whatsoever, 
whether stone, tree, animal, or man obtains 
the outcome of that creative act or activity, 
must be ; that is, must of necessity obtain, 
and of necessity do so as the outcome of that 
act or activity. 



Man a Necessity to Absolute Being 135 



3 1 

Man in potentia, and the Making for 

Man, and Man in the Making a 

Necessity to Absolute Being 

Or. That is it. But here, now, this corol- 
lary of it all, namely, that man — and so of 
stone and tree — exists of the creative act, or 
activity of the round of evolution and involu- 
tion, of necessity, makes it eo ipso that man 
exists of necessity to that act or activity. 
That is, there could not possibly be at all act 
or activity but as obtained at least man in 
potentia, and the making for man, and man 
in the making. 

There could not possibly be that act or 
activity, creative in a sense, but as there was 
the creation of something, any more than could 
there possibly be exercise of faculty for invent- 
ing but as proceeded the invention of some- 
thing ; and what, I say, there was creation of 
as it was creature of that creative act or activ- 
ity of necessity, that, whatsoever, is creature of 



136 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

necessity to that creative act or activity — 
which, as that creature was man, as it is 
known, and in the premises assumed to be, it 
is man of very necessity to that creative act or 
activity. And, indeed, we have not only man 
absolutely necessary to such act or activity, 
but man absolutely necessary to there being 
anything at all ; absolutely necessary, that is, 
to Being Itself that // be at all ! Put in 
theological parlance, — things (in which you 
and I, of course, are included) are as absolutely 
necessary to the Being of God as is the Being 
of God to things. 

And thus it would appear that if human 
being, if human consciousness, if man, in a 
word, is not quite the father of his own father, 
he is at least absolutely necessary to his own 
father's existence as is the one end of a stick 
to the other, and to the stick itself, as there 
is to be at all either the other end or the stick 
itself. 

Inq. But man thus a necessity to Absolute 
Being at all, to anything at all in fact, leaves 
not any part of whatsoever is permanent, 
author and final cause of the remaining part ; 
leaves it no more author and final cause than 



Man a Necessity to Absolute Being 137 

is the one end of a stick the author and final 
cause of the other end, which itself, the one 
end, could have no existence, and the stick 
none, but for the other end. 

Or. No. . 

Inq. But this would leave no possible 
opening to wedge into the Universe of Being, 
no possible opening to obtain back of things, 
any such as the Being of God as author and 
final cause, — author and final cause of things, 
that is to say, of the universe as it is physical. 
And the absence of such as should be author 
and final cause of the physical universe is, I 
should suppose, the absence of Being of God 
altogether ; for Being of God no author and 
final cause at all, is to the effect of no Being 
of God at all — is it not ? 

Or. Why, certainly. Moreover, what I 
have just shown to follow from whatever is, 
as it is permanent, is of necessity, as that 
should be true, even the doctrine of the uni- 
verse an evolution only confirms. For that 
doctrine involves what is much a parallel of 
the physical human body with its blood- 
corpuscles. Thus the body could have no con- 
tinued existence but for the blood-corpuscles ; 



138 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

and the corpuscles themselves could have 
none but for the body ; and still that neither 
is altogether the author or final cause of the 
other. And so the very universe itself, too, 

— and by universe I mean to include every- 
thing that has being or existence, — could not 
obtain but for things, nor things but for the 
universe. And indeed it is with things as it 
is with the blood-corpuscles; as it is these 
arid the body (aside from them), jointly, which 
are authors or final cause — as much as is 
anything their cause — of both, and the cor- 
puscles in part author (or the maintenance) 
not only of the body but, in part, of them- 
selves, themselves their own author in part ; 
so it is with things and the whatsoever besides 

— as there is anything besides — in the uni- 
verse, it is the two jointly which are author 
or maintenance of the whole ; and things — 
meant to include you and me, of course — in 
part author or the maintenance not only of 
the residual universe but in part origin and 
cause (as much so as is anything) of them- 
selves, themselves in part their own origin and 
cause, the rest of the universe being the 
remaining part as should be origin and cause. 



Man Only a By-product or By-end 139 

3 2 

Man only a By-product or By-end 

Inq. But man existing of necessity, and of 
necessity to the end pure and simple of the 
creative act or activity's realization of itself, is 
not man existing as for his own sake ; is not 
man brought into being as from interest any- 
where with anything or anyone in him as for 
himself. 

Or. No ; and therein is another corollary 
of whatever is, as it is permanent, is of neces- 
sity ; another, and that man, therefore, is no 
more to be understood to exist for his own 
sake than do the marble chips which fly off 
under the blows of a sculptor in the evolution 
of a marble statue ; these are made to exist 
that the statue may exist — that it may is 
their only excuse for being. 

Inq. As the chips of marble obtain only 
incidentally, they are what, technically, I sup- 
pose, would be called by-products ; and so you 
would say that man is only a by-product ? 



140 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

Or. Yes ; or more fittingly, perhaps, a 
by-end ; tho as what is directly aimed at once 
realized is a product, whatever may be that 
realized, so that, too, whatsoever falling inci- 
dentally, once realized, is a by-product, a by- 
end if you prefer. Man himself, — and so 
stone and tree, — as obtaining of necessity to 
the end of creative act or activity, is only a 
by-product or by-end ; and so in which or 
whom there is at the fountain-head of Being 
no more interest, no more direct interest at 
least, than has the sculptor in his marble 
chips. 

Inq. But man only incidental, only a by- 
product or by-end, and in whom there is with 
Being at large no interest as for his own sake, 
is a view right the reverse of that current 
among men ; and quite dwarfing his own im- 
portance, as he has hitherto fancied it, in the 
universal consciousness. 

Or. Never mind that. It quite dwarfs 
him and his importance in one way, and mag- 
nifies both in another. 



Creative Act or Activity the Main End 141 



33 

The Main Product or End the Creative 

Act or Activity as for Its Own 

Sake purely 

Inq. But if a man is only a by-product or 
by-end, what then, is the main product or end 
of the creative act or activity ? 

Or. Why, the creative act or activity 
itself, itself as realized ; that act or activity 
itself for its own sake the prime motive at the 
heart of things ; that the infinite passion ; 
that the genius of the universe ; that the main 
product or end, and nothing beyond — or 
nothing unless this perhaps were to include an 
accompaniment or aftermath of ecstasy of 
that act or activity as it was to be supposed 
conscious ; — everything else whatsoever, even 
man, even human consciousness, but incidental 
and by-product or by-end. 



142 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

34 

Positive Proof of Man only a 
By-product 

Inq. But that in man, that in human con- 
sciousness, there is no interest as for his or its 
own sake, and he or it but a by-product or by- 
end, is itself simply a corollary again, as a deduc- 
tion drawn from the most abstract of abstrac- 
tions, the abstraction that whatever is, as it is 
permanent, is of necessity. And is there noth- 
ing ex post facto, nothing of experience or ob- 
servation, to confirm the view both that the 
main product or end of Being is creative act 
or activity for the act's or activity's own sake 
purely, and also that man falls simply an inci- 
dent by the way, as it were ? 

Or. Oh, certainly ; and very much to con- 
firm it. And, first, and what is only modestly 
suggestive, not amounting to proof, is that 
genius has been said to be Godlike ; and God- 
like because peculiarly creative, creative sui 
generis ; absorbingly so, so absorbingly so in 
the instance of first-class genius as to be the 



Proof of Man Only a By-product 143 

very personification of creative activity for the 
creative activity's own sake even. Lessing 
said that could he in the beginning have had 
his choice either to be possessed with all pos- 
sible knowledge to start with, or to be simply 
endowed with faculties by which to acquire it, 
he should have chosen the latter — such to 
him the transport in the mental activity in- 
volved in the acquisition. 

Again, genius of the first order for inven- 
tion turns its back with relief upon its own 
past achievements in mechanical devices, to 
find its paramount enthusiasm and heaven 
only in the throes of fresh invention. Its 
frenzy is in the act or activity of inventing, 
not in the once invented ; in the procession of 
the perfecting, not in the invented perfect — 
or not in these except as reflecting its success. 
Thomas A. Edison, the greatest inventive 
genius of his time, if not of any time, has 
been said to be even sick of his own inven- 
tions once perfected, wishing never to see or 
hear of them again ; this, of course, apart 
from any gain or fame to come of them. And 
even if this be somewhat of an exaggeration, 
and creative mind does take some little delight 



144 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

in its creations, still it is delight in them more 
as evidences of its success than of anything 
else. Even lesser inventors have been known 
to give away invention after invention, losing 
all further interest in them once they were 
accomplished facts. 

But now then, if genius is Godlike, as has 
been said, and Godlike as it is peculiarly 
creative, and its frenzy is more in the creative 
act than in the contemplation of the perfected 
outcome, then we have in genius the hint at 
least of what the motive of the Supreme 
Power is ; what that, in theological parlance, 
of the Being of God, as there might be such, 
is, and that with It or Him, it is, as with 
genius, the creative act or activity itself for 
its own sake, rather than for the sake of 
its any whatsoever outcome. And, surely, if 
with Lessing, if with genius, "the journey 
be the goal," then why not, with Almighty 
Power, the journey be the goal ! If " with 
genius, heaven means the zest of the march 
and the open road forever" then why not with 
Almighty Power, heaven mean the zest of the 
march and the open road forever ! 

This, men of genius, at least, can well un- 



Proof of Man Only a By -product 145 

derstand, even if men so undeveloped that 
they are only men of talent may not. 

Then again, further, it is history that with 
the expansion of the sense of the vastness 
and dignity of Being outside man, has come 
a growing sense in man himself of the com- 
parative insignificance and unimportance of 
his own being itself in the fancied conscious- 
ness of the Supreme Power. During all the 
ages before Copernicus, and for a long time 
after, the universe was only a seven by nine 
affair, as it seemed in the estimation of men, 
with all interest of a Supreme Being centered 
in this little earth of ours, and in man on it ; 
the Almighty Himself even, it being repre- 
sented as late as the seventeenth century, 
hanging out the stars come night-time, and 
purely for man's delectation and benefit ; and 
then with His own hand taking them in again 
with the return of the dawn. And could any- 
thing be more suggestive than this of the 
pettiness of men's view of the universe and 
of the Supreme Being ? — or more suggestive 
of the insufferable conceit of the individual 
man's own opinion of himself in the regard of 
conscious Cosmic or Supreme Being, as con- 



146 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

scious might that be ? And, to-day, even yet, 
lost as is the individual man — himself but a 
fly-speck on a fly-speck of a world — to all 
sense of proportion as he exaggerates his 
own importance in the eye as it were of the 
Supreme Power, he still, in his own estimate 
of himself, is of nothing that absorbing concern 
in the Supreme Consciousness as he imagines 
It, that he once was. And I mean to say that 
there is in this drift of things suggestion again, 
at least, if not proof, of creative act or activity 
for its own sake, and of man only a by-product 
or by-end. 

But now, still further, and what amounts to 
the most positive evidence, and evidence verg- 
ing at least on unequivocally demonstrative 
proof, even if it is not quite that altogether, 
is the fact of the utter recklessness displayed 
by the whatsoever responsible at the root of 
things, in respect of " the individual man," 
even tho, may be, " so careful of the type she 
[it] seems." 

The earth, for instance, suddenly anon gapes 
and swallows up tens of thousands of human 
beings at a gulp ; or, again, thousands or mill- 
ions are carried off by flood or famine, fire 



Proof of Man Only a By-product 147 

or pestilence ; and all with no more apparent 
twinge of feeling or concern anywhere with 
Being at large for the victims than were men 
but so many handfuls of indifferent dust. The 
only possible suggestion of it all is that there 
obtains nowhere care at all for anything but 
life ; no care for any particular form, or for 
forms whatsoever at all, only that the only 
alternative is no life, no creative activity at 
all y as no forms at all. 

Is it said that it is all only because of man's 
ignorance or willful perversity ? And is it all 
because of that ? Is it indeed chargeable to 
the infant in arms that, because of its igno- 
rance or perversity, it is carried suddenly and 
perhaps agonizingly out of life by earthquake, 
fire, or pestilence, — as millions of them are ? 
Or is it thus chargeable as the infant is born 
in a slum — as millions, again, of them are — 
of drunken parents, and the victim of all the 
vicious consequences entailed thereby ? Sim- 
ply to put this question is enough to show the 
utter absurdity of the plea in explanation or 
extenuation of the apparent absence of all 
concern anywhere for men's well-being; the 
absurdity of the plea of man's ignorance or 



148 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

willful perversity as responsible and reproach- 
able altogether for what befalls him. 

In very truth, the universe conducts itself 
precisely as were it indifferent ; and why not 
then in all reason suppose and assume it indif- 
ferent ? And is there not indeed here what 
at least verges on, even if it be not quite alto- 
gether demonstrative proof of, motive at the 
root of things, of interest in the creative act 
or activity as for its own sake purely- — as 
there were to be said to be motive at all — and 
of man being only a by-product ? 

There is, true enough, besides, misfortune 
and pain falling to man largely of his own 
fault ; but this does not invalidate that there 
is a world of it of which men are the victims 
for which they are not responsible. And this 
all can have but one interpretation, and that 
one that it is the creative act or activity for 
its own sake that is explanation of the impulse 
at the foundation of things, impulse wherefore 
suns and worlds and man exist ; meanwhile 
man himself — and so, too, stone and tree — 
answering to other end than himself that end ; 
other end as the chips which fly off in the 
evolution of the statue answer to other end 
than themselves that end. 



Man No More than Men Main Product 149 



35 

Man no more than Men the Main 
Product or End 

Inq. But might it not be man the primary, 
direct, or main product or end, and only men 
a by-product or by-end ? 

Or. No ; and because that only could be 
main product as it should be product distinct- 
ively such from other product ; and man as he 
is distinctively product beside the rest of crea- 
tion below him, which includes consciousness 
which he only shares with that creation below, 
is product too utterly, too ridiculously, too in- 
finitely insignificant for all proportion between 
product and producer, producer assumed as it 
is to be infinite, not to be hideously outraged 
as it is claimed for man that he is creation's 
direct or main product. Consciousness is the 
greatest of all marvels, the wonder of wonders ; 
and man, as I have said, only shares it with 
the manifest universe below him. Wherefore, 
that man, who only shares with the remainder 



150 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

of creation this most wonderful of all things, 
should be the main product or end of all, is 
simply logically impossible. Were man clean 
thru and altogether distinct, different, and 
superior ; even were he alone of all creatures 
conscious, any such claim for him might have 
some shadow of warrant ; but, as it is, it is 
without even that shadow to make it respect- 
able. 



The Volitional Utterly Excluded 151 

36 

The Volitional Utterly Excluded 

Inq. I should suppose that the proposition, 
" Whatever is, as it is permanent, is of neces- 
sity," utterly excluded everything of the voli- 
tional from the realm of absolute Being. 

Or. And so it does. 

Inq. And that with it, with that exclusion, 
goes the universe as watch and watchmaker. 

Or. Most assuredly. 

Inq. I should think, too, that the late trick 
of the theists driven to bay by the doctrine 
of evolution, the trick of putting the watch- 
maker inside the watch, would hardly answer 
its purpose. 

Or. And it doesn't. The watchmaker im- 
manent inside the watch is just as much the 
universe as watch and watchmaker as is the 
watchmaker emanent outside the watch. Only 
as the watchmaker, only in virtue of whose vo- 
lition the watch exists, is snuffed out, is the vo- 



152 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

litional itself snuffed out ; and which, " What- 
soever is, as it is permanent, is of necessity," 
does indeed snuff out, and make absolutely 
impossible the universe of Being as watch and 
watchmaker, as making impossible the watch- 
maker himself, 

Inq. I should think that plain enough. 



Evolution Only Confirms 153 



37 

Evolution Confirms both Proposition 
and Corollary 

Or. Well, as it should not be, and some- 
thing seem needed to confirm this itself, still 
another corollary, as it is of the proposition, 
" Whatever is, as it is permanent, is of neces- 
sity,' ' corollary of the impossibility of the 
universe of Being as watch and watchmaker ; 
and to even lend color of inerrancy to the 
proposition itself, we have it in the doctrine 
of evolution. For then we have the universe 
an evolution as contradistinguished from the 
universe a creation — creation in the old 
orthodox or theological sense, sense of some- 
thing made out of nothing, and not in the 
sense in which even evolution itself is a crea- 
tion in a way. We then have, I say, a universe 
an evolution what is a universe of only one 
activity instead of two or three distinct activ- 
ities as in the universe a creation ; only one 
activity, and that one an involuntary one, and 



154 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

an activity in virtue of which, as anything is, 
everything is which is ; one in virtue of which 
the manifest universe is, and is everything 
altogether ; or, as might be that universe 
snuffed out, would be snuffed out everything 
altogether ; — quite the contrary as the man- 
ifest universe were a creation, and the universe 
of Being altogether as watch and watchmaker. 
Quite the contrary, for then, as I have said, 
we have at least two distinct activities instead 
of only one ; two, one in virtue of which the 
watchmaker, which is to say, the Creator, has 
being, and another, an activity of an activity 
so to speak, a voluntary activity, one super- 
imposed on and exerted by an involuntary one, 
and in virtue of which the watch, which is to 
say the manifest universe, has being, — has, 
and might not be snuffed out, still that should 
the watchmaker, or creator, be ; or, at all 
events would not watchmaker or Creator be 
as should watch or manifest universe be. 






The Positively Moral also Excluded 155 



38 

The Positively Moral also Excluded 

Inq. But I should suppose, again, that the 
proposition, " Whatever is, as it is permanent, 
is of necessity, excluded not only everything 
of the volitional, but also everything of the 
positively moral, from the outlying universe. 

Or. And it does. 

Inq. For how can creative act or activity 
for its own sake solely, with no interest in the 
product as for the product's own sake, be 
positively moral ? — how be exercised with 
love, justice, mercy, and the like ? 

Or. It cannot be. You remember that in 
another connection it was remarked that the 
conduct of the universe was such as could 
only consist with indifference as to mankind, 
and it was asked, Why not, then, in all reason 
suppose and assitme indifference there ? And 
here comes the demonstration — or at least 
the inevitability — of indifference, and of even 
worse, as is once admitted this fundamental 
proposition of whatever is, as it is permanent, 
is of necessity. 



156 Httndredth Century Philosophy 

39 

Blessings no Evidence of Beneficence 

Inq. I know, — but there are blessings, 
as we conceive them, of which we are the 
recipients; are they not proof of interest in 
us as for our own sake at the heart of things, 
interest in our well-being and happiness ? 

Or. Well, and is there not evil too, curs- 
ings, as one may say, with which we are 
afflicted ; and are not these indeed proof as 
much of the contrary and of even a malevolent 
interest in us in that same heart of things ? 

Inq. Cursings ? Cursings — is that it ? 

Or. Yes, cursings. Suppose, for a single 
example, you were born in a " slum," and of 
drunken parents ; born feeble, diseased, a 
cripple, perhaps blind, to suffer for months 
and years, in agony much of the time, and to 
die at last in agony ; meanwhile to be the 
victim of neglect and brutality, and of alto- 
gether the morally most pestilential environ- 
ment imaginable, and all for nothing of which 



Blessings No Evidence of Beneficence 157 

you were in the least responsible, — what 
would that be if not cursings ? 

Inq. I confess, if it were not, our imagina- 
tion must fail us of conceiving what it could 
be. 

Or. Well, the blessings and the cursings 
may, then, be said to offset each other. 

But now let me show you that the blessings, 
not even as were absent such as the evil or 
cursings that afflict us, could imply any inter- 
est in us as for our own sake ; show not only 
that they must fail to imply anything moral, 
but that they may perfectly consist with the 
positively immoral ; and, except that they con- 
sist too with the simply non-moral, must even 
positively argue to a demonstration the pos- 
itively immoral. 

Suppose a born athlete, and one selfish to 
the last degree, and even brutal, having indeed 
murdered his own father in order the sooner 
to come into possession of his inheritance ; 
but withal, too, a man of unusual common- 
sense. Suppose further that, as would be 
natural, his ambition ran to athletics and its 
prizes. His unusual common - sense would 
then stand him in good stead not only to dis- 



158 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

cover to him the terms of his success in every 
contest, and that they were those of healthy 
and vigorous life conditioned on plain food, 
much bathing, abundance of sunshine, and of 
exercise in the open air, together with absti- 
nence from tobacco and all intoxicants ; but 
also to nerve him to conform his habit of life 
in strict accordance therewith, and with so 
rigid fidelity that never is he afflicted in any 
part of his bodily economy with either pain or 
illness such as were to be construed as evil 
or cursings. Given, then, what may be as- 
sumed — physical perfection. 

But now particularly let us notice that his 
blood-corpuscles, with the rest, are at the very 
top of their condition. We then have only 
to imagine them conscious, and sensible of 
their good fortune, that they might seem to 
be overheard exclaiming much as men do of 
their blessings and of their host, the Supreme 
Power : " Oh, our blessings, how manifold 
they are, blessings of abundance of sunshine 
and pure air and pure food, these and more 
which inure to our abounding health and vigor 
and our electrical joy in life ; and how good 
must be our host, how beneficent, to have so 






Blessings No Evidence of Beneficence 159 

much heart interest in us, as for our own sake 
that he should pay the attention he does to 
all these things ! " 

And yet, and yet, their host, as we have 
assumed in the premises, is a scoundrel, and 
has nothing of interest in them as for their 
own sake at all ; and only interest in them for 
his own sake pure and simple ; and indeed, he 
may not even know that they exist. 

And now, in all this, is there not shown, as 
was my wish to show, that blessings even in 
the absence of all such as evil or cursings fail 
to imply good, fail to imply beneficence or 
interest in others as for their own sake ? 

But now, then, if blessings even in the 
absence of all such as evil or cursings count 
for nothing in evidence of beneficence in the 
host, as in our illustration of the athlete, how 
much less than nothing must they count as 
evidence of it in what is mankind's host, the 
Supreme Power, when are present evil or 
cursings such as with which men are afflicted ! 
For then the situation amounts indeed, as 
would seem at first glance at least, to quite a 
demonstration of even positive malevolence at 
the heart of things. And it would, in fact, 



i6o Hundredth Century Philosophy 

altogether amount to this, only that by a sim- 
ilar illustration to that by which blessings 
were put out of court as evidence of goodness 
anywhere, evil or cursings, as evidence of 
malevolence anywhere, can be. 

So that it comes to this, that blessings 
under no circumstances whatever can be of 
significance to the effect of beneficence, which 
is to say goodness or kindliness in intent. 
And that man's any blessings, real or imag- 
inary, least of all argue goodness or kindliness 
in intent at the center of things, and least of 
all, manifestly, because accompanied by what 
we recognize as evils. 






Blessings Only Stick in Effect 161 



40 

Blessings and Evil or Cursings Signifi- 
cant Only of Good or of Evil in Effect 

Or. But to proceed a step further. If 
blessings as significant of goodness in intent, 
and if evil or cursings as significant of malev- 
olence in intent, can both be put out of court, 
then it follows that as they must have some 
significance they must have that only possible 
one left for them to have, namely, that of 
blessings and evil or cursings in effect only. 
They then would be nothing of import either 
of the positively moral or of the positively 
immoral, at the heart of the universe ; and 
their only possible alternative significance 
could be that of the non-moral back of both, 
which non-moral is the equivalent of indiffer- 
ence at the core of things, precisely, again, as 
we were obliged to recognize, a while ago. 
And this goodness and badness, this benefi- 
cence and malevolence only such in effect^ is 
precisely the goodness and badness, the benefi- 



1 62 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

cence and malevolence, of a machine ; say, a 
locomotive, which brings me in safety and in 
time to the bedside of my friend that I see him 
before he dies, — which is goodness in effect ; 
or which same locomotive, again, as it bursts 
its boiler and scalds to death its engineer, 
exhibits badness, badness in effect. It is pre- 
cisely, too, the goodness and badness of the 
universe an evolution, which starts with only 
the capacity for consciousness, which is de- 
veloped afterwards, and which, that it does 
so start, forbids that it set out with either 
goodness or badness in intent, or anything 
else in intent; and compels that its good- 
ness and badness be only such as is such in 
effect ; be nothing such as is such in intent, 
the beneficence no more than the malevo- 
lence. 






Suffering Has No Mission 163 

Suffering Has No Mission 

Inq. I have not thought to ask you what 
is the mission of suffering ; but I should 
think that " Whatever is, as it is perma- 
nent, is of necessity, ,, relegated the notion 
that it had any — relegated that, too, with 
the rest, to the limbo of the absurd or im- 
possible. 

Or. And perhaps it does. But suffering, 
anyhow, cannot in reason be conceived as 
having a mission. Suffering is with result 
simply — sometimes mischievous, sometimes 
innocent, and even sometimes, again, positively 
beneficent ; but it is without a mission. 

A meteorite falls and strikes a greenhouse, 
wrecking it ; would you say it is the mission 
of meteorites to smash greenhouses ? Or it 
falls striking and killing instantly a Bengal 
tiger about to kill and devour a human being 
— a beneficent result, beneficent in effect 
surely; but would you say, even then, that 



164 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

meteorites had a mission, that mission being 
to protect men from Bengal tigers ? Why 
more say that suffering — which, too, at one 
time, works ruin and drives a man to the mad- 
house, and at another makes for his benefit, 
— that that has a mission, mission either for 
good or for ill ? Certainly that can have no 
mission to save which is as likely to damn as 
to save. 

Inq. I confess I do not see, myself, how 
it could. 

Or. Of course, our idea of a mission in 
a thing is of a something specially intended 
for the purpose, whatsoever the purpose. A 
balance-wheel of a watch is such a something ; 
but a rock accidentally in the middle of a 
brook, which enables me to cross without 
wetting my feet, is not such a something, and 
has no mission ; but it serves. Now, suffering 
is not that balance-wheel of a watch — it is 
the rock in the stream ; and it, too, sometimes 
serves. But it has a mission no more than 
the rock. 

Inq. And still we hear it declared on every 
hand that suffering has a mission, namely, our 
development and well-being. 



Suffering Has No Mission 165 

Oh yes ; and as tho these could come in no 
other and even better way ; and in fact as tho 
might not, in any instance, have come even 
greater development and well-being in some 
other way, come thru some other and less 
harrowing agency. 

But this is all gratuitous assumption. My 
corn and cabbages, I notice, and my garden- 
flowers, develop and thrive best with abundance 
of moisture and sunshine, only gentle breezes, 
and kindly care ; and am I to believe the 
human plant is any exception ? By no means. 
I should be a fool to believe so, and I will not 
be that fool. 

Inq. Why then do men insist on the idea 
that suffering has a mission to the end of 
man's development and well-being ? 

Or. Why ? Only that they know no better 
and are more led by a craven, puling, sickly 
sentiment than by an enlightened reason — 
that for one thing, not to name others. 

Besides, if it is the mission of suffering to 
develop, why interfere with one's development ? 
Why interfere with one's well-being if one's 
development is one's well-being? The only 
possible reply, in reason, to this is that there is 



1 66 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

some suffering which may bring good, and some 
which brings harm ; and that it is only in the 
event of that conceived to bring harm that it 
is to be presumed interference could be with 
any profit, and be in reason and justified. 
But even this would not be to the effect of 
the truth of the general proposition that suf- 
fering had a mission. As I said before, that 
can have no mission to save which is as likely 
to damn as to save. 



Evil No Mystery 167 

42 
Evil No Mystery 

Inq. But if suffering has no mission, and 
some of it at least works mischief, then some 
of it at least is what is understood as evil — 
isn't it ? And there we have it — evil. And 
evil, evil in general — what a mystery it is ! 
But perhaps that, too, evil as a mystery, " takes 
to the woods" before the proposition, "What- 
ever is, as it is permanent, is of necessity." 

Or. Well, whether it does or not is need- 
less to discuss ; since, as suffering anyway was 
said to have no mission, so again it is to be 
said of evil that evil, anyway, is no mystery. 
Mystery — why, no, it is nothing that, as I 
have before this incidentally remarked, except 
as we ourselves make it that. We ourselves 
in our stupidity make it a mystery, and then 
wonder at the mystery it is ! And we make 
it that when we assume co7isciousness a thing 
primary y as we do when we assume an infinite 
intelligence abroad, of infinite love, justice, 



1 68 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

mercy, and the like ; assume, in a word, a 
Being of God, — with which it is and will be 
for all time a puzzle indeed how ever evil could 
consist. 

However, evil in the light of the universe 
an evolution instead of a creation is no mys- 
tery ; because then, as we have seen, there is 
only one activity abroad instead of two or 
more ; only one activity, and in virtue of which, 
as anything is, everything is ; only one, and not 
two, — two, namely, an activity in virtue of 
which such as the Being of God, a " creator," 
obtains ; and another, zsl voluntary activity, an 
activity superimposed on the first, in virtue of 
which the manifest universe, the "creature," 
obtains ; the same as are two, one in virtue 
of which I and my body exist, and another, 
in virtue of which a waggon I may make 
exists. And as only one activity, and not 
two, — not two and involving a Being of 
God, — therefore is evil no mystery, none 
whatever. It is this obstinate and stupid 
assumption of consciousness as a thing fun- 
damental, which brings in its train all the 
gravest of the so-called mysteries (all the so- 
called, tho not the one only real mystery, a 



Evil No Mystery 169 

two-fold one, namely, that there is anything 
at all, and what the anything is, what posi- 
tively and in itself it is, which is), which have 
exercised thinking minds since time began ; 
mysteries such as suffering, evil, and the rest, 
which are such not only but as we make them 
so by this assumption, — assumption without 
warrant in evidence or reason, — but worse 
than this, make them so as we assume con- 
sciousness a thing primary, flat in the face 
of a possible demonstration to the contrary, 
which, if not unequivocal and complete to the 
last degree, is at least as near that as any 
human mind has power to conceive. 



170 Hundredth Century Philosophy 

43 

At Last 

Inq. One thing more. What in brief is 
the meaning of human existence? what the 
end of it ? and what at last the crowning 
occupation and enthusiasm of the individual 
human life ? 

Or. The meaning of human existence is 
its necessity to existence in general, to the 
existence at all of anything at all. You, to 
know this, have only to recall what I said of 
man as only a by-product. 

Inq. And what the end of human exist- 
ence ? 

Or. Well, what shall you mean by the 
end? If by it you shall mean the end as 
human existence itself serves, then its end, 
which this service is, is the service which one 
end of a stick is to the other ; which one end, 
so to speak, of the universe is to the other, 
as there is to be stick at all or universe at all 
— and which has already been stated to be 



At Last 171 

its meaning, if even now it is said to be its 
end as well. 

Or, again, if you shall mean by the end of 
human existence the end as that existence is 
served rather than as it serves, then happiness 
is that end, and is the answer to your inquiry. 

But if, still again, rather than anything of 
this, you shall mean what is the fate at last of 
the individual man, then it might be answered 
that what is the fate of any particular wave 
of the sea, or of any particular blood-corpuscle 
of man's life-current, namely, extinction and 
supersedure by others, — that may, perhaps, 
be the fate of one and another particular man, 
still that men, or man, like waves and like 
blood-corpuscles, should go on forever and 
ever. 

Inq. And now, what, at last, the crowning 
occupation and enthusiasm of the individual 
life ? 

Or. It is this : when not the passionate 
pursuit of truth, then the alternating experi- 
ence in consciousness implied in — "I am 
God in Nature, I am a weed by the wall." 






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